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Re: Simple random number generator?
Posted:
Nov 27, 2012 12:43 PM
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"Ben Bacarisse" <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote in message
news:0.e12037e9d116e6e9081a.20121127131802GMT.878v9nw5f9.fsf@bsb.me.uk...
> Clark Smith <noaddress@nowhere.net> writes:
>
>> On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:08:17 -0500, Existential Angst wrote:
>>
>>> Would be the digits of e, pi, et al?
>>> If that's the case, no need for fancy pyooter algorithms?
>>>
>>> Inneresting article on pi, randomness, chaos.
>>> http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/pi-random.html
>>
>> Is it not the case that the digits of e, pi et al. can't strictly
>> be random, if it is only because they are highly compressible? I.e.
>> because there small, compact formulas that spit out as many digits as you
>> want in a completely deterministic way?
>
> Absolutely.
Well, as I responded above, Bailey/Crandall would most certainly disagree.
>
> Of course, that's also the case for the "fancy pyooter algorithms" that
> Existential Angst wants to replace, so he or she is not really talking
> about random but about pseudo-random sequences.
Well, ackshooly I am talking about true random. Bailey and Crandall are
hypothesizing that e, pi et al are true random (I like "intrinsically
random"), but you and others are apparently arguing that because pi can be
calc'd or generated, it cannot be random. Bailey/Crandall would clearly
disagree with this.
Calculating the digits
> of pi or e etc (and, presumably, some simple combinations thereof) is
> harder than the super fast "fancy" algorithms already used, so I don't
> see the benefit.
Hasn't pi been calc'd to billions of places already? Seems to me that's
enough random numbers to last people for a while.... lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandomness talks a bit about some
strategies for true random generators. Seem kind of hokey to me, esp. if
people-based.
I think "intrinsic experiments", like single-photon slit/diffraction
experiments would be an elegant way to generate true random numbers -- but
even that is then dependent on the "legitimacy" of the experimental setup.
Even flipping a coin can be biased.... it's not that a fair coin is
inherently random ito heads or tails, but that the *coin tossing mechanism*
has to be guaranteed to be random, ito of initial conditions. No pun
intended, but perhaps a dicey proposition ito true randomness.
Heh, but not a bad pun, eh?
--
EA
>
> --
> Ben.
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