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Feedback about random numbers item
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Feedback about random numbers item
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Reenen Laurie
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Feedback about random numbers item
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on:
18/05/2013 16:58:02 »
Reenen Laurie asked the Naked Scientists:
On your show a listener asked about why electronic egg cookers require less water for more eggs?
My experience is, it doesn't.
The indicators on the measure cup is just wrong. You pretty much always have to use at least half the cup, and I use more water for more eggs. I tried as advertised once, got raw eggs, then just used my intuition to make them.
In terms of random numbers (*) it is a whole field of study, and random numbers are never truly random. Even rolling dice in theory could be deterministic, if you can account for all the physics. Similarly computerised random numbers are called pseudo-random, as most random number generators works with a seed, meaning that if you insert the same seed, you will have the exact same sequence.
Measuring if they are "random enough" is done just by rolling your dice several million times, and seeing if you have a fairly (but not perfect) even distribution among your results.
*: a very simple almost truly random way is to take the current time at nano second level (or lower) and take that as your number between 0-1, other more sophisticated ways include listening to radio static, thermal noise etc. though those could have a bias depending on the surrounding environment.
What do you think?
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Last Edit: 18/05/2013 16:58:02 by _system
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