Everyone knows that computers have a lot to do with numbers. Some of you may remember a few years ago when there was a minor flaw found in the math processor in an early series of Pentium processes that prompted a recall. What you may not know is the importance of random numbers in computers. The are a number of ways that these random numbers are used. First of course there is the shuffle function in iTunes so that you get that nice variety of music to listen to. Another important use is in encription. All encription approaches use random numbers as part of the way they hide that important information from prying eyes. This applies to that spreadsheet you have locked, that encrypted email you just sent and your credit card you used on a web site to buy that new DVD. But wait, where do random numbers come from. Do we just order them online from the random number store? Well no, your computer generates them on the fly. ...and they aren't actually random...
Those of us in the computer world actually refer to them as pseudo-random numbers. Of course that means they only look random or maybe they are kind of random. Truth is there folks who worry about just how random those pseudo-random numbers really are. So some researchers Purdue just finished a study of how well various approaches to random numbers are. They compared one common approach using pseudo-randomly selected groups of digits from the number pi with 31 different commercially available pseudo-random number generators. You remember that you grade school teacher told you that pi was equal to 3.14159 followed by a never ending, never repeating string of numbers. Well actually that may have been wrong also. It does appear that pi may eventually include a predictable pattern of numbers if you take the calculation out far enough. But I digress. So what they found is that using numbers from pi is not a bad approach. In some tests it was the best of the 32 approaches. But in others the various 31 commercial approaches performed better. Exciting news? So now you can feel safe making that online purchase knowing that your credit card number is protected by a pretty random pseudo-random number. Not impressed? Ok so you can go back to listen to your iTunes and leave the computer scientists to worry about how random you are.