Search All of the Math Forum:
Views expressed in these public forums are not endorsed by
Drexel University or The Math Forum.
|
|
|
|
Re: Simple random number generator?
Posted:
Nov 28, 2012 9:38 PM
|
|
"Ben Bacarisse" <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote in message
news:0.7912956cb736cc5e9ead.20121128152922GMT.87d2yxu4od.fsf@bsb.me.uk...
> "Existential Angst" <fitcat@optonline.net> writes:
>
>> "Ben Bacarisse" <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote in message
>> news:0.ef56b5652decd19bb478.20121128013501GMT.87k3t6v7ay.fsf@bsb.me.uk...
>>> "Existential Angst" <fitcat@optonline.net> writes:
> <snip>
>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> No, they don't. I am sure they accept the information theoretic
>>> meaning of the word, just as I accept the statistical sense of the term
>>> (especially when in "scare quotes").
> [I corrected some of my spelling in the above]
>>
>> What is the diffeence between "random" in the information-theoretic
>> context
>> vs. the statistical context?
>> Wouldn't the two be correlatable or translatable in some way?
>
> They are related but they are not the same. I think all
> non-compressible sequences will be statistically random, but not
> vice versa (as pi shows).
What is compressibility, and what is its significance here?
So are the digits of pi random or not?
I personally think picking 5 or 10 consecutive digits from the current
trillion digits of pi, and making THAT the basis for a Lotto win would be
more inneresting than a bunch of air-blown pingpong balls....
>
> <snip>
>>>> 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
>>>
>>> Does the lol mean you are joking?
>>
>> Well actually, the wiki article I linked says pi has been calc'd to a
>> *trillion* digits.
>> The point being, if you need a random sequence, for whatever purpose, you
>> can just sort of pull them "off the shelf", from anywhere in the
>> sequence.
>> A trillion numbers oughtta do ya....
>
> The problem is the size of the shelf. It's much simpler to link to
> small PRNG algorithm than to provide access to a pre-computed large
> sequence.
>
> <snip>
>>> Good quality, hardware-generated random number sequences (if our current
>>> understanding of quantum effects is correct) are random in a different
>>> way to the digits of pi. It helps if the terminology is be able to
>>> distinguish between them.
>>
>> Which harks back to the above.
>> Couldn't you take a single photon slit experiment, sample the results
>> "byte-wise", ie, record every diffraction result in groups of 5, and let
>> those five zero's/one's represent a base 10 digit? Then, you'd have the
>> photon slit experiment generate irrational-number-like randomness.
>
> Why 5?
Well, however many binary places it takes to to make the digit 9 -- 4
places?? lol
>
>> In that sense, information-theoretic randomness (if you would charactize
>> the
>> photon exp as "informational") and statistical randomness could be
>> translatable?
>
> I don't know what you mean by "translatable".
In the sense that every 4 photon trials could be used to specify a base 10
digit,ergo a random generator.
I figger if one photon trial has a random result, 4 trials would be even
random-er....
Angst's Theorem??
--
EA
>
> --
> Ben.
|
|
|
|
