Re: Random number question?
From: Mark Nudelman (markn_at_greenwoodsoftware.com)
Date: 06/21/04
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Date: Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:17:31 GMT
Paul Allen Panks wrote:
> Test #2
> Random Number test
> 32
> 29
> 21
> 35
> 29
> 22
> 32
> 4
> 27
> 27
>
> Test #3
> Random Number test
> 21
> 18
> 10
> 24
> 17
> 11
> 21
> 28
> 16
> 16
>
> Ah oh...the last two tests repeated the last two sets of numbers not
> once but TWICE! That's not good!
[snip]
> Is there a way to truly limit the number of repeats during a set of
> random number generation? I can foresee a lot of random numbers in my
> own mind, but they have to be truly, truly random for the random
> number generator to be doing a good job.
Your requirements seem to be inconsistent. There's no reason why "truly"
random numbers wouldn't have consecutive identical numbers (if that's what
you mean by "repeats"). If you restrict your sequence somehow to avoid
consecutive identical numbers, then your sequence is not random. Perhaps
you want something more like a shuflling algorithm, that simply randomly
permutes a sequence of consecutive integers.
As others have noted, it's not possible for a computer to produce truly
random numbers in software.
--Mark
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