What does “O(1) access time” mean?

Question

I have seen this term \"O(1) access time\" used to mean \"quickly\" but I don\'t understand what it means. The other term that I see with it in the same context is \"O(n) ac

Answer 1

O(1) does not necessarily mean "quickly". It means that the time it takes is constant, and not based on the size of the input to the function. Constant could be fast or slow. O(n) means that the time the function takes will change in direct proportion to the size of the input to the function, denoted by n. Again, it could be fast or slow, but it will get slower as the size of n increases.