Abstract
Randomness is a fuzzy and difficult concept. In this chapter we side-step the philosophical issues and instead focus on random and pseudorandom sequences. We discuss what we mean by a random sequence and give examples of processes that generate randomness. We then conduct an experiment that shows humans are bad at randomness. Pseudorandom sequences are introduced next, along with an experiment showing that the quality of a pseudorandom sequence matters. We conclude with a quick look at hardware random number generation as supported by modern CPUs.
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Kneusel, R.T. (2018). Random and Pseudorandom Sequences. In: Random Numbers and Computers. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77697-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77697-2_1
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