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From: dew@esl.UUCP (Douglas Wood)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,sci.crypt,sci.math.stat
Subject: Re: Do you use RANDOM NUMBERS?
Message-ID: <419@esl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Mar-87 19:25:27 EST
Article-I.D.: esl.419
Posted: Thu Mar 19 19:25:27 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Mar-87 09:51:19 EST
References: <5712@reed.UUCP>
Reply-To: dew@esl.UUCP (Douglas Wood)
Organization: ESL, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA.
Lines: 28
Keywords: Random numbers, leprechauns
Xref: mnetor sci.math:761 sci.physics:942 sci.crypt:256 sci.math.stat:72

In article <5712@reed.UUCP> mdr@reed.UUCP (Mike Rutenberg) writes:
>How do people currently use RANDOM NUMBERS?  Simulations?  Anything else?

In experimental high energy physics, random numbers are used for two main
uses: 1) simulating detector noise, Landau fluctuations in gas, photon
statistics in phototubes, etc.  2)  Physics of collisions are described
as probabilities rather than certainty as to what happens when.  In the
first example, the Monte Carlo (models based on random numbers) must
simulate the detector in the situation of the physics measurements.  In
the second example, the Physics must be generated with the frequency of
occurrence expected in nature to see if an effect is observable against
normal background events.

>How do you generate them?

There are many methods.  Knuth's books have good methods.

>Do you think your results would benefit from using
>truly random numbers rather than pseudo-random stuff?

Truly random numbers can not be generated by a machine.  However, a bad
random number generator can bias the results of a calculation.  So,
one must pay attention to one's random number generator.  Correlation
coefficients are one of the tests of random numbers.  There are others.

Hope this helps.

dew@esl.uucp