The worst-case is indeed arbitrarily long, but the amortized runtime can be analyzed. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amortized_analysis http://en.wikipedia.

The worst-case is indeed arbitrarily long, but the amortized runtime can be analyzed. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amortized_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amortized_analysis