This is a major difference between “hard to predict” and “random”. This type of number generation is very rare in computers, but is done on occasion. A PC has no hardware of this sort, and therefore can’t generate true random numbers. What you need is a circuit called a “noise generator” and you connect this to the input of an A/D converter. It is possible to generate random numbers electronically, just not with your typical desktop PC. It’s much easier to regulate ping pong balls than computer ROM chips. Someone has to pour through all of the code and make sure that the machine really does generate a random number. The ROM chips in these computers are regulated to prevent cheating, and quite a bit of effort goes into the regulation. Once you pull the lever your fate is sealed. The wheels going around are all for show. Vegas slot machines often use a computer to generate a random (or rather, psuedorandom) number. The nonpredictible element can be something as simple as ‘how long between entering the first and second letters of the username’.įYI - Most computers use the system time as the “nonpredictible element.” The computer can’t predict at what second you will start up the program, so it’s a reasonably random seed value for the psuedorandom sequencer. It’s perfectly possible for a nonpredictible element to be introduced, which in turn can randomise the number system present so as to provide a quasi-random system. Quantum mechanics takes care of that on the small scale and time takes care of that on the large scale. We don’t live in a clockwork universe, even in theory. Just the sheer overwhelming number of changes that occur from every tiny little thing that happens, from the amount of humidity in the air to the tiny indentations to the cage that result from thousands of collisions, ensure that a statistical randomness ensues. The things you mention - “all the factors affecting each ball” - don’t prevent randomness, they cause it. And not only that, but the environment in which the events occur are never exactly the same each time. In reality, the balls are never laid out in exactly the same arrangement and are never spun at exactly the same rate for exactly the same amount of time. In theory, if the balls were always initially laid out in exactly the same arrangement and spun at exactly the same rate for exactly the same amount of time, the results should come out the same every time.īut we don’t live in a world of theory, we live in a world of reality.
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