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Re: Simple random number generator?
Posted:
Nov 27, 2012 2:22 PM
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"Existential Angst" <fitcat@optonline.net> wrote in message
news:50b4fbe2$0$9805$607ed4bc@cv.net...
> "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?
Bottom line to all this, I think this problem has a significant
epistemological component, as it does a mathematical component.
Epistemology is a hard thing to gain perspective on, indeed.... never mind
prove.
--
EA
> --
> EA
>
>
>>
>> --
>> Ben.
>
>
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