The
random-number generator used for these tests was the randQ function from the Linux operating system.
The argument seed (= 0) is the encoded seed to the
random-number generator, and param (= 0) is the parameter to the generator.
A faulty
random-number generator can wreck a scientific project.
Moreover, the structure of the resulting random variates is similar to that of the underlying uniform
random-number generator. Hence the nonuniform random variates inherit its quality properties.
The
random-number generator described in Schrage [1979] is included for completeness.
Called lavarand, the new
random-number generator is the work of Robert G.
Subroutine randp is the portable
random-number generator of Schrage [1979].
Indeed, the algorithm behaves "like a high-quality
random-number generator," says Denning.
To accomplish this goal, they selected a spin-flipping algorithm recently developed by Ulli Wolff of the University of Kiel in Germany and the new "subtract-with-borrow"
random-number generator of George Marsaglia and Arif Zaman of Florida State University in Tallahassee (SN: 11/9/91, p.
A
random-number generator scrambles the bits of a given number to produce a new number in such a way that the result appears to be independent of previously generated numbers and represents a random selection from the set of all available numbers.
The moral objections to state-sponsored gambling were long ago swept away by courts and the apparently insatiable appetites of humans to wager on everything from horses and dogs to the whims of
random-number generators and bouncing pingpong balls.
Large-scale studies, which rely on high-speed
random-number generators and quicken the pace of volunteers' responses, seem to interfere with any psychokinetic effects, contends a group of psychokinesis researchers led by Dean Radin of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, Calif.
Faulty randomness Researchers provided new mathematical insight into why certain
random-number generators give wrong results in some computational experiments and simulations (www.sciencenews.org/ 20030927/mathtrek.asp).
We tried the other LCGs mentioned above, as well as several other recommendable
random-number generators (such as those proposed by L'Ecuyer [1999a], for example), and their displays were similar to that of Figure 4, i.e., they behaved in agreement with [H.sub.0].
