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A Survey of the Theory of Random Sequences

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Part of the book series: The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science ((WONS,volume 11))

Abstract

There are now 10 years that the theory of random sequences revived beginning with a stimulating paper of Kolmogorov in 1965. In this paper Kolmogorov proposed a definition of finite random sequences with respect to the equiprobability distribution. Those binary sequences x were considered to be random for which the minimal length of a description for x (program complexity of x) differed little from the length of x. The idea that randomness is related to the minimal length of descriptions was independently developed in Chaffin (1966). By introducing the concept of a universal algorithm Kolmogorov gave a rigorous definition of program complexity which no more depends on the choice of a special machine (or algorithm).

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© 1977 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Schnorr, C.P. (1977). A Survey of the Theory of Random Sequences. In: Butts, R.E., Hintikka, J. (eds) Basic Problems in Methodology and Linguistics. The University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 11. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0837-1_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0837-1_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-8350-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0837-1

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