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 ...

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 ...

Using a single, chip-scale laser, scientists have managed to generate streams of completely random numbers at about 100 times the speed of the fastest random-numbers generator systems that are ...

Quantum physics can be exploited to generate true random numbers, which have important roles in many applications, especially in cryptography. Genuine randomness from the measurement of a quantum ...

To simulate chance occurrences, a computer can’t literally toss a coin or roll a die. Instead, it relies on special numerical recipes for generating strings of shuffled digits that pass for random ...