----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Leitl" <eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
> Well, a good pseudorandom number generator passes all statistical
> tests for randomness, and has only one pattern: it's periode, after
> which it begins repeat itself. This periode can be very long,
> i.e. much longer than the universe exists. Hence there is no
> measurement procedure allowing you to tell the output of one from
> another.
The -pseduo- random number generator you describe is getting very close to
being effectively a random number generator, at least until repetetion
occurs.
> > One could assign a probability of being truly random to such a string
of
> > numbers. (Which is all one could do in any case.)
>
> I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
-Any- string of numbers (source independent) has a probability of being
truly random-- the closer that probabilty is to 100%, the more effectively
random that string becomes. Though excruciating unlikely (actually a limit
that approaches zero) a string of 1s -could- be the output of a truly random
generator.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:37:33 MDT