Randomness

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.

All descriptions of change are a unique blend of chance and determinism, according to the sweeping mathematical proof of the “weak Pinsker conjecture.”

City blocks help illustrate why walking randomly tends to take you away from your starting point.