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Re: Monte Carlo Hits Again



This is a worthwhile endeavor IMHO. The problem is that random
number programs generate pseudo-random numbers. Radioactive decay, OTH,
is a truly random process, so that the sequence of time intervals between
counts is a truly random sequence (at least it is before being digitized).
I suggested a setup like this at a Physics West Meeting at Elmhurst
College in about 1988 (I hope Pharaoh's hasn't tried to patent the idea).
Regards,
Jack

Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I was the same, and
we loved to call ourselves by that great name...Our first memorable
scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill,
not up.
Mark Twain, <Extract from Eve's Autobiography>

On Sat, 25 Dec 1999, Raymond A. Rogoway wrote:

Finally...An answer to "what good is Physics?"

The instruction sheet sent to me (unrequested) with a freebie on-line
gambling Casino CD, contains the following sentence:

"The games at Pharaoh's casino are based on true random numbers,
generated by a Geiger-M?ller Tube Detector, which uses the
unpredictability of background radiation to generate genuinely random
numbers."

And to think, all this time I've been using my GM Tube to take
measurements. Do you think that schools will not have to remove their GM
Tubes because it might encourage gambling during the lab period?

Happy Pre-Millenium

Ray Rogoway

--
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep
And I have no more papers in a heap
And in the morning I can sleep
And stroll in those woods so dark and deep.
r. frosted