Amortized Analysis

In computer science, amortized analysis is a method of analyzing algorithms that considers the entire sequence of operations of the program. It allows for the establishment of a worst-case bound for the performance of an algorithm irrespective of the inputs by looking at all of the operations. At the heart of the method is the idea that while certain operations may be extremely costly in resources, they cannot occur at a high-enough frequency to weigh down the entire program because the number of less costly operations will far outnumber the costly ones in the long run, "paying back" the program over a number of iterations. It is particularly useful because it guarantees worst-case performance rather than making assumptions about the state of the program.