This document discusses heaps and their implementation and applications. It defines a heap as a complete binary tree where each node's value is greater than its children in a max heap or less than its children in a min heap. Heaps can be implemented using an array, where calculations allow accessing a node's children and parent. Common heap operations like insertion and deletion take O(log n) time. Heaps are used in priority queues, sorting algorithms like heapsort, and some graph algorithms. Heapsort first builds a max or min heap from an array then repeatedly deletes the root to sort in descending or ascending order respectively.