From: gts (gts@optexinc.com)
Date: Wed Sep 04 2002 - 05:43:52 MDT
Sondre Bjellåsn wrote:
> I just joined the extropian list and don't have the
> complete thread on this...
Welcome. I'm fairly new here myself, having joined only about a month
ago. I'm having a great time playing intellectual badmitten with the
sharpies here. (Seriously to all: this discussion list is a real
pleasure. I think I will make this one of my homes on the internet.
Thanks for tolerating me. :-)
> In theory it should be impossible to get truly random numbers,
In theory it is possible to get truly random numbers but it requires
access to data from quantum processes. For example uranium emits beta
particles at genuinely random time intervals.
> nomatter how many digits each number contains it will always be
> possible for the same number to occur twice, in theory.
There is nothing un-random about numbers that happen to appear twice in
sequence.
> In practice it's
> fairly simple to create a "true" random number generator. For
> anyone not familiar with the internal workings of the
> generator they would predict the generator to be 100% random.
In the case of such pseudorandom number generators they would be correct
to conclude that the numbers are indistinguishable from genuine random
numbers. However they would be mistaken if they were conclude that the
numbers were in fact genuinely random.
Consider pi as an example of a pseudorandom number generator. Pi is an
irrational number, meaning that the numbers that appear after the
decimal point are unpredictable and non-repeating. This does not however
mean that the next number in the sequence is genuinely random. While the
next number in pi is not predictable it is nevertheless predetermined by
the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Genuine random
numbers are not so predetermined.
-gts
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