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Generation of Random Numbers

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Part of the Statistics and Computing book series (SCO)

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulation is a core technology in computational statistics. Monte Carlo methods require numbers that appear to be realizations of random variables. Obtaining these numbers is the process called “generation of random numbers”. Our objective is usually not to generate a truly random sample. Deep understanding of the generation process and strict reproducibility of any application involving the “random” numbers is more important. We often emphasize this perspective by the word “pseudorandom”, although almost anytime we use a phrase similar to “generation of random numbers”, we refer to “pseudorandom” numbers. The quality of a process for random number generation is measured by the extent to which the sample generated appears, from every imaginable perspective, to be a random sample (that is, i.i.d.) from a given probability distribution. Some methods of random number generation are better than others.

Keywords

  • Markov Chain
  • Cumulative Distribution Function
  • Random Number Generation
  • Gibbs Sampling
  • Markov Chain Monte Carlo Method

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Correspondence to James E. Gentle .

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag New York

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Gentle, J.E. (2009). Generation of Random Numbers. In: Computational Statistics. Statistics and Computing. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-98144-4_7

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