"The worst algorithm in the world?"

Very good demonstration of subsequent improvements of a naive algorithm. To me that was somewhat depreciated by the fact that you can actually calculate n-the Fibonacci number using Binet's closed form formula (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Closed-form_expression" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Closed-form_ex...</a>). You will need arbitrary precision arithmetic starting with certain 'n' though, as IEEE 754 will not give you correct result.

The title is hyperbole (I'm sure that I've written much, much worse algorithms, many times), but the breakdown of Fibonacci sequence algorithms is really enjoyable.

&#62; It’s not just bad in the way that Bubble sort is a bad sorting algorithm; it’s bad in the way that Bogosort is a bad sorting algorithm.<p>Nonono, Bogosort is way worse than naive recursive fibonacci - the former doesn't even guarantee termination, recursive fibonacci still does.<p>If you want to calculate fibonacci numbers not as a misguided exercise in algorithms but actually efficiently, use an algebraic form: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Computation_by_rounding" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Computation_by...</a>

I always find it incredibly difficult to concentrate on comparisons of Fibonacci sequence algorithms when I know for a fact that there is a closed-form expression[1] which gives F(n) in constant time.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Closed-form_expression" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Closed-form_ex...</a>

In a somewhat similar genre, I enjoyed this paper on computing primes, and some of the very-inefficient algorithms that have been used for such purposes (often mislabeled as the "sieve of Eratosthenes"): <a href="http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~oneill/papers/Sieve-JFP.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~oneill/papers/Sieve-JFP.pdf</a>

It seems the author hasn't read SICP:<p><a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-11.html#%_sec_1.2.2" rel="nofollow">http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-11.html...</a>

Ppffftt, I wrote a recursive algorithm that calculates 2^n in O(2^n) time for an exam question.<p>That's what I call a bad algorithm!

If you're writing in JavaScript it's a nice candidate for self memoizing functions. Obviously this is only helpful if you're making numerous requests to the method, a single request still produces a series of recursive calls.

I always liked the sort where you randomize the elements, check to see if they're sorted, and if not try again.

Dunno. IIRC Every time I have seen the "bad" Fibonacci recursive algorithm has been followed by the "good" recursive one (bottom-up), which is O(1) in size if your language/implementation does tail-call elimination...

This started out taking baby steps, then took a huge leap in complexity right here:<p><i>Since the Fibonacci numbers are defined by a linear recurrence, we can express the recurrence as a matrix, and it’s easy to verify that...</i><p>It's been way too long since my math minor for me to understand that.

Interesting writeup, thanks. OT: For all its fame, has any of you ever needed to calculate Fibbonacci numbers in real life? I haven't.