Coping with errors in binary search procedures (Preliminary Report)
Ronald L. Rivest, Albert R. Meyer, Daniel J. Kleitman · 1978
We consider the problem of identifying an unknown value xε{1,2,...,n} using only comparisons of x to constants when as many as E of 'the comparisons may receive erroneous answers. For a continuous analogue of this problem we show that there is a unique strategy that is optimal in the worst case. This strategy for the continuous problem is then shown to yield a strategy for the original discrete problem that uses log2n+E.log2log2n+O(E.log2E) comparisons in the worst case. This number is shown to be optimal even if arbitrary “Yes-No” questions are allowed.