Computational complexity of Fibonacci Sequence

Question

I understand Big-O notation, but I don\'t know how to calculate it for many functions. In particular, I\'ve been trying to figure out the computational complexity of the nai

Answer 1

The naive recursion version of Fibonacci is exponential by design due to repetition in the computation:

At the root you are computing:

F(n) depends on F(n-1) and F(n-2)

F(n-1) depends on F(n-2) again and F(n-3)

F(n-2) depends on F(n-3) again and F(n-4)

then you are having at each level 2 recursive calls that are wasting a lot of data in the calculation, the time function will look like this:

T(n) = T(n-1) + T(n-2) + C, with C constant

T(n-1) = T(n-2) + T(n-3) > T(n-2) then

T(n) > 2*T(n-2)

...

T(n) > 2^(n/2) * T(1) = O(2^(n/2))

This is just a lower bound that for the purpose of your analysis should be enough but the real time function is a factor of a constant by the same Fibonacci formula and the closed form is known to be exponential of the golden ratio.

In addition, you can find optimized versions of Fibonacci using dynamic programming like this:

static int fib(int n)
{
    /* memory */
    int f[] = new int[n+1];
    int i;

    /* Init */
    f[0] = 0;
    f[1] = 1;

    /* Fill */
    for (i = 2; i <= n; i++)
    {
        f[i] = f[i-1] + f[i-2];
    }

    return f[n];
}

That is optimized and do only n steps but is also exponential.

Cost functions are defined from Input size to the number of steps to solve the problem. When you see the dynamic version of Fibonacci (n steps to compute the table) or the easiest algorithm to know if a number is prime (sqrt(n) to analyze the valid divisors of the number). you may think that these algorithms are O(n) or O(sqrt(n)) but this is simply not true for the following reason: The input to your algorithm is a number: n, using the binary notation the input size for an integer n is log2(n) then doing a variable change of

m = log2(n) // your real input size

let find out the number of steps as a function of the input size

m = log2(n)
2^m = 2^log2(n) = n

then the cost of your algorithm as a function of the input size is:

T(m) = n steps = 2^m steps

and this is why the cost is an exponential.

Answer 2

You model the time function to calculate Fib(n) as sum of time to calculate Fib(n-1) plus the time to calculate Fib(n-2) plus the time to add them together (O(1)). This is assuming that repeated evaluations of the same Fib(n) take the same time - i.e. no memoization is use.

T(n<=1) = O(1)

T(n) = T(n-1) + T(n-2) + O(1)

You solve this recurrence relation (using generating functions, for instance) and you'll end up with the answer.

Alternatively, you can draw the recursion tree, which will have depth n and intuitively figure out that this function is asymptotically O(2n). You can then prove your conjecture by induction.

Base: n = 1 is obvious

Assume T(n-1) = O(2n-1), therefore

T(n) = T(n-1) + T(n-2) + O(1) which is equal to

T(n) = O(2n-1) + O(2n-2) + O(1) = O(2n)

However, as noted in a comment, this is not the tight bound. An interesting fact about this function is that the T(n) is asymptotically the same as the value of Fib(n) since both are defined as

f(n) = f(n-1) + f(n-2).

The leaves of the recursion tree will always return 1. The value of Fib(n) is sum of all values returned by the leaves in the recursion tree which is equal to the count of leaves. Since each leaf will take O(1) to compute, T(n) is equal to Fib(n) x O(1). Consequently, the tight bound for this function is the Fibonacci sequence itself (~θ(1.6n)). You can find out this tight bound by using generating functions as I'd mentioned above.

Answer 3

You can expand it and have a visulization

     T(n) = T(n-1) + T(n-2) <
     T(n-1) + T(n-1) 

     = 2*T(n-1)   
     = 2*2*T(n-2)
     = 2*2*2*T(n-3)
     ....
     = 2^i*T(n-i)
     ...
     ==> O(2^n)

Answer 4

The proof answers are good, but I always have to do a few iterations by hand to really convince myself. So I drew out a small calling tree on my whiteboard, and started counting the nodes. I split my counts out into total nodes, leaf nodes, and interior nodes. Here's what I got:

IN | OUT | TOT | LEAF | INT
 1 |   1 |   1 |   1  |   0
 2 |   1 |   1 |   1  |   0
 3 |   2 |   3 |   2  |   1
 4 |   3 |   5 |   3  |   2
 5 |   5 |   9 |   5  |   4
 6 |   8 |  15 |   8  |   7
 7 |  13 |  25 |  13  |  12
 8 |  21 |  41 |  21  |  20
 9 |  34 |  67 |  34  |  33
10 |  55 | 109 |  55  |  54

What immediately leaps out is that the number of leaf nodes is fib(n). What took a few more iterations to notice is that the number of interior nodes is fib(n) - 1. Therefore the total number of nodes is 2 * fib(n) - 1.

Since you drop the coefficients when classifying computational complexity, the final answer is θ(fib(n)).

Answer 5

Well, according to me to it is O(2^n) as in this function only recursion is taking the considerable time (divide and conquer). We see that, the above function will continue in a tree until the leaves are approaches when we reach to the level F(n-(n-1)) i.e. F(1). So, here when we jot down the time complexity encountered at each depth of tree, the summation series is:

1+2+4+.......(n-1)
= 1((2^n)-1)/(2-1)
=2^n -1

that is order of 2^n [ O(2^n) ].