High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A ternary search algorithm is a technique in computer science for finding the minimum or maximum of a unimodal function (function that is either strictly increasing and then strictly decreasing or vice versa). A ternary search determines either that the minimum or maximum cannot be in the first third of the domain or that it cannot be in the last third of the domain, then repeats on the remaining two-thirds. A ternary search is an example of a divide and conquer algorithm (see search algorithm).