Complete Chaos?

[magicyte]

I know that many of you guys out there have heard of functions that generate random numbers. Is this COMPLETELY RANDOM (COMPLETE CHAOS), or is there some sort of PATTERN? (in other words, is there such thing as 'complete chaos' in a random function?) Either way, I heard from a friend that math is used to generate these numbers (which I knew), but is this math random?

-magicyte

[Trinithis]

The math behind these generators is very precise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudorandomness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudor...mber_generator

For truely random numbers, one would need to rely on random phenomena in the environment:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardwar...mber_generator

[Snookerman]

I think I read some article about this and the only way to generate real random numbers is to use nature, I think lava lamps were very good at this.

[Twey]

It's arguable whether there is such a thing as 'real randomness'.

[jscheuer1]

It's arguable whether there is such a thing as 'real randomness'.

You've obviously never seen my kitchen table.

[magicyte]

You've obviously never seen my kitchen table.

LOL

Thanks guys.

-magicyte

[traq]

do you even need true randomness? for any practical purpose, I'd think that mere apparent randomness would suffice. after all, even the example of the motion of a lava lamp isn't really random, just really difficult to predict or control.

[magicyte]

do you even need true randomness

Well, I don't think anyone NEEDS it (I just wanted to know if there was such thing), but possibly WANTS it first of all. Second of all, you're right about that lava lamp thing, and 'randomness' may not be random. If you're making a game and an NPC goes around the same path EVERY SINGLE DARNED TIME, the guy/gal who bought the game probably won't be too happy with the outcome (I'm completely sure). So, 'randomness' could be redefined (I guess).

-magicyte

[Snookerman]

even the example of the motion of a lava lamp isn't really random, just really difficult to predict or control.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/random.html

[Twey]

You've obviously never seen my kitchen table.

Perhaps you could create a random number generator based on the current location of the salt pot.