Historians just uncovered a revolutionary sorting algorithm from the Soviet archives: Stalin Sort . The time complexity? A beautiful O(n) – because you simply eliminate any elements that aren't in the correct position. No comparisons, no swaps, just... removal. Technically the remaining elements ARE sorted, right? The algorithm is brutally efficient: scan through the array once, and if an element doesn't fit where you want it, shoot it out of line (delete it from memory). Keep going until what's left is perfectly ordered. Sure, you might end up with an empty array, but an empty array is technically sorted! Computer scientists hate this one weird trick because it violates every principle of data preservation, but you can't argue with O(n) performance. Just don't ask about the space complexity of all those deleted elements.