What provides quick access to an array element by its position, and why is this operation considered to be performed in constant time?

Fast access to an array element by its position is ensured because the array is implemented as a contiguous block of memory, where elements are stored sequentially.

This means that to access the element with index i, it is enough to calculate the address:

start_address_of_array + i * size_of_element

After calculating the address, you can directly access the element without traversing all previous elements.

Therefore, the index access operation is performed in constant time — O(1), regardless of the array size.

Example: in Java or Kotlin, arrays are structured so that array[i] is a direct memory access, not a traversal of elements.