But isn't this just radix sort, effectively? That's linear-time, no problem. There's no fundamental rule saying that sorting has to be O(n lg n), it's only sort

But isn't this just radix sort, effectively? That's linear-time, no problem. There's no fundamental rule saying that sorting has to be O(n lg n), it's only sorting-by-comparison that needs O(N lg n) comparisons. Though I guess one might point out that, without direct (and infinitely precise!) comparisons, eventually you'll have enough sticks that you won't really be able to tell which is the largest.