role of constant of proportionality in complexity of algorithm

Question

what is the role of the constant of proportionality while comparing the the order of complexities of two competing algorithms.

Like in case ALGO A has complexity 3*O(n) while ALGO B has complexity 10*O(n),What will be the effect of constant of 3 and 10 here?

Answer 1

The definition of f=O(g) is that there exists an n,m such that for every x>n, f(x) < M*g(x). that's why the constant doesn't matter. suppose ALGO A runs in 2*n binary operations, while ALGO B runs in n binary operations. then both run in O(n) time complexity.

Answer 2

you can judge the importance of constant of proportionality by comparing insertion sort (c1.n^2),and merge sort(c2.nlogn). insertion sort is better when n is small,because of only single reason ie c1

Answer 3

The constants have no effect at all -- "$3\cdot O(n)$ and "$10\cdot O(n)$" both describe the same class of functions.