Solution: Use of pointers for merging reduces the speed of other operations. This is the main drawback of all advanced data structures.

Solution: A leftist heap supports two properties- structural property, ordering property and a heap order property.

Solution: In a leftist heap tree, the null path length of a null node with no children is defined as -1.

Solution: A leftist tree with r nodes on the right path is proved to have at least 2r-1 nodes. This theorem is proved by induction.

Solution: Performing insert and merge operations on the right path could destroy the leftist heap property. It is extremely easy to restore that property.

Solution: The fundamental operations on leftist heaps is merge. Insertion operation is a merge of a one-node heap with a larger heap.

Solution: A leftist heap has a structural property and an ordering property which is similar to that of a binary heap. Hence, leftist heap is also said to be binary heap.

Solution: The efficiency of merge operations in leftist heap is mathematically found to be O( log N) which is the same in binary heaps.

Solution: The length of the shortest path from a node to a node without two children is defined as 0.

Solution: The heap is named as leftist heap because it tends to have deep left paths. It follows that the right path ought to be short.