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15 Sorting Algorithms in 6 Minutes

Timo Bingmann
Demos
YouTube
4 HN users recommended this demo4 months2014–2023 score 4
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

A classic that HN points to for seeing how sorting algorithms behave, valued for how satisfying it is to watch and hear.

A visualization and sonification of 15 sorting algorithms, from selection sort to bogo sort, run on shuffled integers in six minutes. Each algorithm gets a size and speed scaled to its complexity.

“just want to quickly share an IMHO interesting sorting algorithm visualization video” (HN, 2020)

4 recommendations · 3 citations · 1 critical · Demos · intro

8 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@Artemis2 Apr 2014 Recommends
on HN thread Illustrated Sorting Algorithms
Fascinating! Another sorting visualization that I like is this one: [this video] . It is well-known but the way everything falls back into place at each time... that's very satisfying.
Satisfying sorting visualization where everything falls back into place.
@jerf Feb 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Quadsort: a stable non-recursive merge sort
You may enjoy this: [this video] There are several similar videos on YouTube demonstrating sorts. If that's a bit sterile for you, you can get a more human touch via the playlist [link]
Sorting demonstration videos.
@bestboy Dec 2020 Recommends
on HN thread Bubblesort, rocksort, and cocktail-shaker sort
just want to quickly share an IMHO interesting sorting algorithm visualization video: [this video] "Visualization and "audibilization" of 15 Sorting Algorithms in 6 Minutes. Sorts random shuffles of integers, with both speed and the number of items adapted to each algorithm's complexity. The algorithms are: selection sort, insertion sort, quick sort, merge sort, heap sort, radix sort (LSD), radix sort (MSD), std::sort (intro sort), std::stable_sort (adaptive merge sort), shell sort, bubble sort, cocktail shaker sort, gnome sort, bitonic sort and bogo sort (30 seconds of it)."
Visualizes and sonifies 15 sorting algorithms, each scaled to its complexity.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@frik Feb 2014 Cites it
on HN thread Algorithm Development is Broken
Additional useful resources: * Sorting Algorithm Animations: [link] * Data Structure Visualizations (interactive): [link] * Sorting algorithm visualization (interactive): [link] * 15 Sorting Algorithms in 6 Minutes (video, turn off sound): [this video] * Algorithm Visualization Portal: [link] * and I just found an old HN discussions with more resource links: [link]
Animated, audible comparison of fifteen sorting algorithms.
@nift Feb 2019 Cites it
on HN thread Data Structure Visualizations (2011)
Interesting site! Always cool to see these things visualised. It reminds me of the visualisation of different sorting algorithm (with sound): [this video]
Sorting visualization with sound.
@kthejoker2 May 2020 Cites it
on HN thread Resources to Learn Python in 2020
Read more
For true beginners to programming (e.g. my elementary age kids), I found these resources to be really effective at what I think of as the most important lessons in programming: * it's okay to try things * you can't break it * programming is very literal and precise * there's syntax, there's structure, and there are operations [link] This one is the best, it is aimed square at anyone whose only experience with computers is typing and web browsing. [link] Also great for the leveling down, but you also have to teach some math and some concepts around functions and algorthms, which can definitely feel a little boring / pigeonhole programming as mostly a fancy calculator. Use sparingly and wisely. [link] This is just one example, but the code snippets at Python for Beginners are well documented, designed with simple constructs, and are a great way to see "applied programming" / provlem solving to achieve an outcome. One useful technique is to give your student the "problem" the code snippet solves and ask your students to describe how they would code it in words and you transcribe it as some pseudocode on a board, and then "debug" it together to address input validation, logic, efficiency, then they write it.in Python, and then compare your code to the actual snippet. When their code is basically spot on with the snippet it's like they've won the lottery, I definitely had forgotten that magic ... I should make a YouTube playlist of thr videos I've shown them, here's one they liked
@Jeff_Brown Apr 2023 Pushes back
on HN thread Linuxwave: Generate Music from the Entropy of Linux
I was hoping for something less sanitized, that gives more insight into what the processor is doing, like this: [this video] This, though, falls into the enormous genre of algorithms that take some cool phenomenon (often pi) and then quantize it to some tempo, and some scale, and some set of samples, thereby killing everything that was interesting about the original phenomenon.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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