Skip List Lane Diagram & Search-Cost Distribution (2D)

This 2D companion draws the same probabilistic skip list as a real node-link lane diagram instead of a rotatable 3D bar histogram: every node sits at its sorted key position, appears in every lane up to its coin-flip height, and every connecting segment is a genuine forward pointer chased directly out of the built structure. A second panel plots the level-occupancy histogram against the theoretical N·p^(k−1) curve, and running search trials animates one real top-down search tracing across the lanes — starting at the sparsest top level and dropping down exactly where the algorithm would — so you can watch the probabilistic O(log n) search mechanism directly rather than only read its cost in a stat box.