Talk:pseudorandom

I had originally entered the definition of a sequence having all the properties of a random sequence except true randomness, but this has been erased from the history. It was not in Wiki format, and perhaps not worded too well.

I have entered a reworded version of the original entry. For mathematical use (e.g. in Montecarlo methods) any old sequence of jumbled numbers is no good; they must be distributed correctly, and have the expected number of anomalies. And the advantage of a pseudorandom, rather then true random, sequence is that it can be repeated exactly.

This precise definition is of use to mathematicians, and maybe the jumbled numbers definition could be said to be better for non-mathematicians. But a non-mathematician would never need to speak of pseudorandomness 213.208.107.91 12:42, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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I won't split hairs too much on your reasoning, as your definition seems quite good. I had been thinking of the computer sense, and, although I flunked maths, I always thought that you could not produce random numbers using mathematics. Computers can't make random numbers unless there is a random input such as moving the mouse or random hits on the keyboard. This is used when producing keys for encryption, which require randomness in the extreme. For serious encryption, experts advise against using random number generators as they are only pseudorandom. --Dmol 21:11, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)