Physicist Uses Laser Light As Fast, True-Random Number Generator 326
MrKevvy writes
"An Ottawa physicist is using laser light to create truly random numbers much faster than other methods do, with obvious potential benefits to cryptography: 'Sussman's Ottawa lab uses a pulse of laser light that lasts a few trillionths of a second. His team shines it at a diamond. The light goes in and comes out again, but along the way, it changes. ... It is changed because it has interacted with quantum vacuum fluctuations, the microscopic flickering of the amount of energy in a point in space. ... What happens to the light is unknown — and unknowable. Sussman's lab can measure the pulses of laser light that emerge from this mysterious transformation, and the measurements are random in a way that nothing in our ordinary surroundings is. Those measurements are his random numbers.'"
Finally a reason for socially inept people to buy. (Score:5, Funny)
And the numbers are... (Score:5, Funny)
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 ....
You don't KNOW it's not random...
Re:"Truly random numbers" (Score:5, Funny)
I don't believe such a thing can possibly exist.
Of course they can. Here: 7, 3. I've just given you two *totally* random numbers.
A man in the middle attack (Score:4, Funny)
already done... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:already done... (Score:5, Funny)
... only random if you are measuring whether Excel crashes or not when you do it.
Re:Finally a reason for socially inept people to b (Score:5, Funny)
Finally a reason for socially inept people to buy diamonds!
I dunno about that. Diamond video cards were okay.
WARNING! (Score:5, Funny)
Do not look at random numbers with remaining eye.
Obligatory (Score:2, Funny)
Shine on you random diamond.
Re:"Truly random numbers" (Score:5, Funny)
Of course they can. Here: 7, 3. I've just given you two *totally* random numbers.
Nope. And I can prove it. Both of your numbers were between 0 and 9, inclusive. Counting only integers that makes ten possibilities. Now, between 10 and 999, inclusive, there are nine hundred ninety possibilities. Since random numbers are equally likely that means that it is ninety-nine times more likely for a random number to be between 10 and 999, inclusive, than it is for them to be between 0 and 9, inclusive. Successive probabilities multiply, so the likelihood that two numbers chosen at random will be between 10 and 999 inclusive are 8991 times more likely than that they will be between 0 and 9, inclusive. The only reasonable conclusion is that 7 and 3 are not random numbers.
~Loyal
p.s. I think if you search the literature you'll find that 3 is, in fact, a random number. Therefore you problem lies with the 7.
Too Important (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You should have said (Score:2, Funny)
Herman Cain has come far in just 10 years.
Re:You should have said (Score:5, Funny)
Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/221/ [xkcd.com]
That cartoon contains code for returning a single value, but the programmer came up with that value by rolling the dice.
On behalf of all the blind readers of Slashdot, thank-you.
Re:"Truly random numbers" (Score:5, Funny)
I've looked at your post 8 times so far, and it always returns 7 and 3 as random numbers. It's not so random when it always returns the same predictable values.
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
I can put away that cup of really hot tea.
Re:Finally a reason for socially inept people to b (Score:2, Funny)
you just HAD to be "that" guy didn't you....