Divide and conquer is a general algorithm design paradigm where a problem is divided into subproblems, the subproblems are solved independently, and the results are combined to solve the original problem. Binary search is a divide and conquer algorithm that searches for a target value in a sorted array by repeatedly dividing the search interval in half. It compares the target to the middle element of the array, and then searches either the upper or lower half depending on whether the target is greater or less than the middle element. Finding the maximum and minimum elements in an array can also be solved using divide and conquer by recursively finding the max and min of halves of the array and combining the results.