# Help with Linear recurrence relation with balanced partition

In my slides for my algorithms class, I have a method of finding complexity of recursive functions called Recurrence Relation with "partizione bilanciata" which means "balanced partition".

My course is in Italian and looking online in English I could not find any trace of this method, I know of the recursive tree, induction and master theorem.

Has anyone an idea of how this is called in English? I don't like studying in Italian and I do not understand those pdfs.

I'm attaching some images of the formulas.

What exactly "balanced partition" mean, does it have something to do with for example Quick Sort, when you choose a middle pivot and the partitions are equal in size, which means it's balanced ?

Is it the same as master theorem written maybe in a different way? I can see the form of the recurrence relation is different than the master theorem:

The master theorem has $$f(n)$$ instead of $$cn^\beta$$.

• It seems that part of your questions is more connected to language than Computer Science. Have you tried reading article at Wikipedia and changing language to gather vocabulary? Have you tried reading about master theorem in existing questions at this site? – Evil Sep 8 '19 at 1:38
• This is the master theorem. – Yuval Filmus Sep 8 '19 at 16:38
• Yes, exactly, when we have a problem divided in subproblems, but my teacher is showing it in a different way , as you can see in my answer on the bottom of the page, so i got confused because she calls it "Balanced partition method" – AndrewM Sep 8 '19 at 16:39
• It's exactly the same as the master theorem. If anything, the master theorem is a bit more general, since we can replace $cn^\beta$ with any function which is $\Theta(n^\beta)$. But otherwise, it's exactly the same. Just a different name. – Yuval Filmus Sep 8 '19 at 16:40
• Yes, my confusion comes from the fact that my teacher uses "Master theorem" for the Master theorem for decreasing functions T(n-1) and then she uses, Recurrence relation with "balanced partition" for the master theorem with dividing functions T(n/b) where b>=2. This is why I got very confused, because I studied by myself in English and then I went and looked at the Italian slides and got lost. Thank you for your help. – AndrewM Sep 8 '19 at 16:42