With Varying Frequency – Amateur Radio Ponderings

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Strings of Random Numbers – useful things for various testing, coding and modeling efforts.

But how to generate these strings (and other forms of randomness), specially as so many on-line offerings are not truly random (“Pseudo-Random” in the jargon)?

One interesting project is “Random.Org” at:

http://random.org

RANDOM.ORG is a true random number service that generates randomness via atmospheric noise. This page explains why it’s hard (and interesting) to get a computer to generate proper random numbers.

Random numbers are useful for a variety of purposes, such as generating data encryption keys, simulating and modeling complex phenomena and for selecting random samples from larger data sets. They have also been used aesthetically, for example in literature and music, and are of course ever popular for games and gambling. When discussing single numbers, a random number is one that is drawn from a set of possible values, each of which is equally probable, i.e., a uniform distribution. When discussing a sequence of random numbers, each number drawn must be statistically independent of the others.

– http://www.random.org/randomness/

Much, much more at the Random.Org website!

73

Steve
K9ZW