What do you mean by inch-worm effect in linear queue Data Structure?
Is it even a valid term in DSA?
I tried Searching all over the internet and some books of renowned author but couln't figure it out. Even chatGPT failed.
The "inch worm effect" in a linear queue data structure is not a standard concept. It is likely an analogy that your professor made up, discussed in class, and expects you to remember.
If we think about how an array-backed linear queue often works, however, then it does seem to correspond to the way that elements are moved in such a data structure, so this is probably what your prof is referring to:
As items are added and removed from the queue, the head and tail move toward the end of the allocated space. The queue gets "compressed" into the end of the allocated space kind of like the way a walking inch worm's body gets compressed toward its forward end.
When there is no more room at the end of the allocated space, all of the element are are moved back, and possibly the space is re-allocated, all at once so that the elements of the array then occupy the beginning of the allocated space. This is something like the moment in which an inch worm lifts up its front end and stretches it out, suddenly providing a lot more space for its body to compress into.
If I was asking students to "discuss" this, the key feature that I would expect them to mention is that when all the elements are moved into new positions, the room left at the end of the allocated space must be proportional to the amount of work done. This ensures that the queue as a whole requires only amortized O(1) time per append or remove operation.