This is a question on nomenclature. In complexity theory of algorithms, there is a name for a test case constructed specifically to make the algorithm fail. I had that word in my head, but can't recall it for the life of me now. I'm hoping someone here can help. What is the word for an input that is incredibly unlikely to occur in the real world but someone who knows the algorithm can construct to make it fail or perform badly?

CodePudding user response：

You may be thinking of an adversary:

The idea is that an all-powerful malicious adversary pretends to choose an input for the algorithm. When the algorithm wants looks at a bit, the adversary sets that bit to whatever value will make the algorithm do the most work.

CodePudding user response：

The word I was looking for was "pathological case". When reading about the Cauchy distribution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchy_distribution), I chanced upon it again seeing it described as a "pathological distribution".