What are the odds of that??

jimbob55 · #1 April 19th, 2001, 05:54 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Deathstalker:
How do two machines generate the SAME random map? Or is the editor not as random as it seems???

Chances are low, but if SE4 seeds it's random numbers on something like a lookup table, not that low. I think syndicate wars used pi to 500 or 1000 decimal places as a seed.

If you keep flipping a coin long enough, eventually it will land on its edge.

rdouglass · #2 April 19th, 2001, 06:07 PM

If its anything like my old Pascal dayz - it was never really random - just psudo-random from an aforementioned 'lookup table'...

Don't really know for sure, but I don't believe there is ever really a random number ever generated by a computer. They can make 'em kinda' random by adding in time-ticks or something, but never really random.

DirectorTsaarx · #3 April 19th, 2001, 10:26 PM

Most computerized random-number generators use a complex formula that takes a "seed" value and comes up with a "pseudo-random" number. This "pseudo-random" number is then used as the seed for the next number in the sequence, etc. So, really, a random-number generator merely creates a randomized sequence of numbers; not only is every number equally likely to occur, if you run through the whole sequence, you will get a perfect distribution of those numbers (i.e., actual occurrences will exactly match predicted occurrences). Obviously, for any set of runs less than the full sequence of numbers, the distribution is not necessarily perfect; in fact, as the set of runs approaches the full sequence, the distribution becomes more "perfect" and therefore less "random".

A pseudo-random sequence can be implemented in hardware using a shift register and some exclusive-OR gates connected as a feedback loop for the shift register.

DirectorTsaarx · #4 April 19th, 2001, 10:39 PM

Try this site for more information on random-number generators:
http://nhse.npac.syr.edu/random/index.html

dogscoff · #5 April 21st, 2001, 01:06 AM

I read somwhere that certain military systems have computers hooked up to cameras watching lava lamps, using the random movment of colours to gneratee random seeds for encryption purposes.

Or something. I might have dreamt it all=-)

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There is an exception to every rule. Including this one.

jimbob55 · #6 April 20th, 2001, 03:17 PM

LOL. I knew lava lamps had to be useful for something

What we need is a sample of brownian motion like a good hot cup of tea......

DirectorTsaarx · #7 April 20th, 2001, 07:12 PM

quote:
Originally posted by dogscoff:
I read somwhere that certain military systems have computers hooked up to cameras watching lava lamps, using the random movment of colours to gneratee random seeds for encryption purposes.

Or something. I might have dreamt it all=-)

I think that was a University somewhere in California (or maybe it WAS a government lab - some of those are run by university types anyway). I remember looking at it 5 years ago and thinking it was a pretty cool idea.

And jimbob - a cup of tea isn't bad, but I thought it was obsoleted by bistromathics