<div class="konafilter"><h1>Sorting algorithms: quite boring until you add sound effects </h1> <div class="data" style="margin-bottom: 7px;"> <strong><span class="dtreviewed">Aug. 19, 2010</span></strong> (<span>5:55 pm</span>) <strong>By:</strong> <span class="reviewer vcard"><span class="fn"><a href="http://www.geek.com/users/Matthew/">Matthew Humphries</a></span></span> </div> </div> <iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geek.com%2Farticles%2Fgeek-cetera%2Fsorting-algorithms-quite-boring-until-you-add-sound-effects-20100819%2F&amp;layout=button_count&amp;show_faces=false&amp;width=100&amp;action=like&amp;colorscheme=light" allowtransparency="true" style="border: medium none; overflow: hidden; width: 75px; height: 20px; float: right;" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div class="article" style="border-top: 0px none; padding-top: 19px;"> <!-- sphereit start --><!-- begin redux related --> <p><object width="580" height="460"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/t8g-iYGHpEA?fs=1&amp;hl=en_GB"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/t8g-iYGHpEA?fs=1&amp;hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="460"></object></p> <p>Anyone who has ever done a programming course or tried to <a id="KonaLink0" target="undefined" class="kLink" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static;" href="#"><font style="color: blue ! important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;" color="blue"><span class="kLink" style="color: blue ! important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: relative;">learn </span><span class="kLink" style="color: blue ! important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: relative;">to </span><span class="kLink" style="color: blue ! important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: relative;">code</span></font></a> out of a book will have come across sorting algorithms. Bubble, heap, merge, there&#x2019;s a long list of these methods of sorting data.</p> <p>The subject matter is fairly dry. Thankfully someone has found a way to not only make sorting more interesting, but easier to remember and understand too.</p> <p>All it took was a bit of visualization and some sound effects. The result is each type of sort having its own distinct melody. Above is a video giving examples of insert, bubble, selection, merge, and a gnome sort. If that&#x2019;s not enough for you, then check out heap sort below.</p> <p><object width="580" height="460"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iXAjiDQbPSw?fs=1&amp;hl=en_GB"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iXAjiDQbPSw?fs=1&amp;hl=en_GB" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="580" height="460"></object></p> <p>The videos were created by <a id="KonaLink1" target="undefined" class="kLink" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static;" href="#"><font style="color: blue ! important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: static;" color="blue"><span class="kLink" style="color: blue ! important; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-weight: 400; font-size: 13px; position: relative;">YouTube</span></font></a> users andrut. He explained how the sounds were generated in the video description:</p> <blockquote><p><em>On every comparison of two numbers (elements) I play (mixing) sin waves with frequencies modulated by values of these numbers. There are quite a few parameters that may drastically change resulting sound &#x2013; I just chose parameters that imo felt best.<br> </em></p></blockquote> <p>via <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1616482">Hacker News</a></p></div>