Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Very little in this life is truly random. A coin flip is influenced ...

A new network paradigm can generate meaningfully random numbers—and fast. In network encryption, randomness has huge value because it’s not “solvable” by hackers. Classical computers can’t be ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Generating a random number might seem like an easy task, but it can be surprisingly difficult — especially if the probability distribution from which the number is drawn is complex. This is often the ...

A team that included researchers at a US bank says it has created a protocol that can generate certified truly random numbers, opening the possibility that current generation quantum computers can be ...

If your name gets picked for jury duty, it’s because a computer used a random number generator to select it. The same goes for tax audits or when you opt for a quick pick lottery ticket. But how can ...

There are several ways to conveniently generate random data on Unix systems. One popular way is to make use of Perl’s rand function. Another is to employ the /dev/random or /dev/urandom pseudodevice ...