Computing Atlas

How Computing Was Built
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Algorithm

Bubble Sort

Sorting Algorithm

A simple comparison sort that repeatedly steps through a list, swapping adjacent elements that are out of order, so that larger elements bubble toward the end; easy to explain but quadratic in time, so mostly a teaching example rather than a production sort.

Facts
Credited To
Edward Harry Friend (earliest description, 1956) 1
Connections

In Field

Sources
1. Wikipedia, Bubble sort
History
Quote, History
The earliest description of the bubble sort algorithm was in a 1956 paper by mathematician and actuary Edward Harry Friend, Sorting on electronic computer systems, published in the third issue of the third volume of the Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), as a "Sorting exchange algorithm."
View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.