Tough Question, Excellent Answer!

Just happened to see this video in Youtube: Barack Obama (U.S Presidential Candidate) is being interviewed at some Google office (a funny interview).

Not sure, why Obama gave an interview at Google (may be a kind of social, or industrial issue based interview).

The interviewer says “winning U.S presidential election and getting a job at Google – both are equally tough”. So, the interviewer throws some tough computer science interview question to Obama just for fun.(If you are Comp.Science student, then you would be already knowing how tough the google interview questions are!)

The question is: “Whats the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers?”

Don’t know how many of you would start thinking and try to answer some thing immediately..!

(Youtube video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nnj7r1wCD4 )

But, great to my surprise, Obama suddenly responded “I think… Bubble Sort is the wrong way to go!” – Excellent answer.

I could have clapped, if I were sitting at the audience side. Even a computer science graduate cannot suddenly answer this kind tough question. Anyway, though he didn’t tell in what way it can work, he told an other way in which it cannot work. May be that’s should be a personality identification for some high profile jobs like U.S President :-). All the good luck to Obama!

Let it be.

I am very curious to know how many computer science graduates can bring out the right answer (or any relevant correct answer) for the same question. I’ve some answer in my mind. Don’t know how far it’s correct.

If you are a computer science student, you could refer any books, internet, discuss with people and do etc. Post the answer within one day – I’ve a very nice title waiting for you – if your answer convinces me :)

Question is repeated:

“Whats the most efficient way to sort a million 32-bit integers?”