fig selection sort of list merge sort divide and conqueras the ancient romans might have saidis an effective battle strategy it turns out this concept is very important when writing algorithms the merge sort algorithm is one instance of divide and conquer algorithm divide and conquer algorithms are usually written recursivelybut don' necessarily have to be the basic premise is that we divide problem into two pieces each of the two pieces is easier to solve than trying to tackle the whole problem at once because the two pieces are each smaller this copy belongs to 'acha