🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <236@sri-arpa.ARPA> KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU writes:
>From:  "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
>
>  A true random number generator might be a speck of radium with a
>Geiger counter next to it.  A silicon device, i.e. computer, can only
>be a ~rpseudo-random number generator.  The numbers that are produced by
>it may be well distributed, but they only APPEAR random - because of
>our lack of knowledge of the algorithm....

Sorry, the life isn't that simple. Let's not argue about true or pseudo
random numbers, philosophers will do it for us.
We use computers because it's easy to get any distribution we want and
the process is controlled. If you don't understand the mechanism of
generating the numbers you just get some numbers and you have to analyse
them. As a result you could say they have such and such distribution, but
that doesn't imply that the numbers to be generated next will have the
same property.

As far as the examples you used, a Geiger counter counts 0,1,2,3,4,5,6....
That sequence can hardly be considered to be random. The only way to make
it what you call "true random number generator" would be to build some
fairly sophisticated hardware around it. Even then it wouldn't generate
the numbers with required distribution; it's simply too complicated.
It would be much simpler to use an analog silicon device in a mode where
"you lack the knowledge...", but this method (it is actually used) is also
hard to control. A mathematical model is just the easiest and most reliable
approach.

zdenek

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 Men are four:
 He who knows and knows that he knows, he is wise - follow him;
 He who knows and knows not that he knows, he is asleep - wake him;
 He who knows not and knows that he knows not, he is simple - teach him;
 He who knows not and knows not that he knows not, he is a fool - shun him!

 zdenek@CS.COLUMBIA.EDU  or 	...!seismo!columbia!cs!zdenek
 Zdenek Radouch, 457 Computer Science, Columbia University,
 500 West 120th St., New York, NY 10027