Solve the confusion of Big Omega, Big Theta and Big O

This is a very good question and answer from the Internet which solve my confusion too.

Q：

I'm confused between Big O, Big Omega, and Big Theta notations. I understand that Big O gives you an upper bound which gives you the worst case growth rate of the function. And Big Omega gives you a lower bound or best case growth rate of the function, and a function that has an upper and lower bound of the same order is Big Theta. Does this explicitly mean that Big O is worst case; Big Omega is best case, and Big Theta is the average?

That's the way I believed it to be, but then this confused me: Insertion Sort has a worst and average case of Big O(n^2) and Big Theta (n^2) respectively, and a best case of Big Omega (n). Those are two different functions: one is quadratic (n^2) and the other is linear (n), wouldn't you need to find separate lower and upper bounds on them?

Any help would be appreciated. This has been confusing me for a while.

Answer：

Big Theta is not the average runtime. It only describes the case where the upper and lower bounds of a function are on the same order of magnitude. As far as I know there is no asymptotic notation to describe the average runtime of a function.

You are correct that Big O describes the upper (worst case) bound, and Big Omega describes the lower (best case) bound. Insertion Sort has an upper bound of O(n^2) and a lower bound of Omega(n). Big Theta notation does not apply to Insertion Sort, even though Insertion Sort has an average runtime.

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