random numbers

Researchers are one step closer to injecting probability into deterministic machines.

Readers’ modifications of a bean machine showed how deterministic laws are capable of producing random-seeming behavior.

Mathematicians have figured out exactly how many moves it takes to randomize a 15 puzzle.

Playing with a simple bean machine illustrates how deterministic laws can produce probabilistic, random-seeming behavior.

Is nature inherently random or is perfect randomness just an illusion based on our ignorance?

Does objective, perfect randomness exist, or is randomness merely a product of our ignorance?

Randomness would seem to make a mathematical statement harder to prove. In fact, it often does the opposite.

Mathematicians have proved that a random process applied to a random surface will yield consistent patterns.

Pure, verifiable randomness is hard to come by. Two proposals show how to make quantum computers into randomness factories.