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Physicist Uses Laser Light As Fast, True-Random Number Generator
MrKevvy writes
"An Ottawa physicist is using laser light to create truly random numbers much faster than other methods do, with obvious potential benefits to cryptography: 'Sussman's Ottawa lab uses a pulse of laser light that lasts a few trillionths of a second. His team shines it at a diamond. The light goes in and comes out again, but along the way, it changes. ... It is changed because it has interacted with quantum vacuum fluctuations, the microscopic flickering of the amount of energy in a point in space. ... What happens to the light is unknown — and unknowable. Sussman's lab can measure the pulses of laser light that emerge from this mysterious transformation, and the measurements are random in a way that nothing in our ordinary surroundings is. Those measurements are his random numbers.'"
Finally a reason for socially inept people to buy diamonds!
The world's smartest bug zapper www.zapstats.com/kickstarter
9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 ....
You don't KNOW it's not random...
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
I don't believe such a thing can possibly exist.
Of course they can. Here: 7, 3. I've just given you two *totally* random numbers.
Well, something has to explain what we observe in the lab.
So far, quantum physics is the only successful theory.
I mean, what about a diamond in the middle attack? If you manage to replace it with well known and tweaked diamond, with known quantum effect (you see, i could use funny words too), then all the systems would be jeopardized.
Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/221/
I just use the rand() function in Excel. Way less hassle than firing a laser through a diamond...
conservation of information would say that if we could measure and analyze your subconscious, your experiences, your neural connections to a high enough degree that we could uncover the reasoning for your random number picks, and probably even predict the next "random" numbers you come up with.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Well, there are things about the universe for which we have no explanation other than 'it's random'. Stuff where the internal state, if any, is hidden from us in pretty fundamental ways. If your opponent has to surround your laser experiment with a jupiter scale atom smasher in order to determine what you're going to get, that's pretty securely random.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
"the measurements are random in a way that nothing in our ordinary surroundings is"
Nonsense. They are random in precisely the same way that a good bouncy roll of the dice are. They are random in precisely the same way that a temperature measurement of a cup full of boiling water 10 seconds after it is poured is. They are random in precisely the same way that the sound coming out of a piezoelectric microphone taped to a car window travelling at 60 MPH is. They are random in precisely the same way that the noise of a reverse-biased silicon junction is.
Perhaps the author meant to say "the measurements are random in a way that no pseudorandom number generator algorithm is."
Finally a reason for socially inept people to buy diamonds!
I dunno about that. Diamond video cards were okay.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The newspaper article is not giving any information that is not already included in the summary.
The paper is published in Optics Express, the abstract can be read here. The full article is behind a paywall unfortunately. The author claim that this concept could deliver random numbers at a rate of 100 GHz which is quite fast compared to other true random number generators out there that are based on thermal noise, radiation or other processes.
Do not look at random numbers with remaining eye.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
That's the point though--just because we don't have an explanation doesn't make it random--it may be apparently random, but that irks me in the same way that people drop off the "known-" or "observable-" in front of "universe".
Also "securely random" implies an application for which these "apparently random" numbers are "good enough"...
A while back, the Simtec Entropy Key was making the rounds among Debian Devs, and claims to be exploiting quantum effects in the P-N junctions to be a true RNG.
They seem serious and I tend to trust paranoid Debian developers' opinions, but ultimately I don't have enough knowledge myself to make a confident judgment call. I'd be curious about more opinions.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
A lot of tools have diamond blades.
I agree that the numbers are random, in the sense that they're subject to chance, but how confident are they that they know the sampling distribution? That is, can you use this method to generate a random sample a with uniform distribution, or a gamma distribution, or anything else you'd like to use random numbers for?
With quantum observation errors, I wonder if they're assuming the sampling distribution is normal, in which case they'd have to do some work to convert it to give the kind of output that rand() gives. Problems would likely show up in the tails of the distribution (near 0 and 1). TFA doesn't mention any of the statistical issues, only the physics ones.
Unlike easily predicted phenomena like radioactive decay and thermal noise?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Incorrectly applying the conservation of information. What you are saying wouldn't work and would violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. What would happen is as you did the measurements to that degree you would lose information on the motion of the particles involved as you gained the new information on the position hence the conservation of information. The uncertainty of the choices would still exist and you'd most likely get two different results if his choice had any quantum affects involved.
Of course they can. Here: 7, 3. I've just given you two *totally* random numbers.
Nope. And I can prove it. Both of your numbers were between 0 and 9, inclusive. Counting only integers that makes ten possibilities. Now, between 10 and 999, inclusive, there are nine hundred ninety possibilities. Since random numbers are equally likely that means that it is ninety-nine times more likely for a random number to be between 10 and 999, inclusive, than it is for them to be between 0 and 9, inclusive. Successive probabilities multiply, so the likelihood that two numbers chosen at random will be between 10 and 999 inclusive are 8991 times more likely than that they will be between 0 and 9, inclusive. The only reasonable conclusion is that 7 and 3 are not random numbers.
~Loyal
p.s. I think if you search the literature you'll find that 3 is, in fact, a random number. Therefore you problem lies with the 7.
I aim to misbehave.
A Heiselber's Uncertainty Principle attacks!
It says "hello"!
It is very effective!
That was what Einstein thought. So he set up a thought experiment to prove that quantum was only apparently random, called the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky paradox. Turned out, after Aspect ran the experiment, that Einstein was wrong. Reality was more random than he thought. It still might be the case that there's an order behind the quantum randomness, but that's currently more an article of faith than scientific insight.
The term "random" is generally (even in science, from what I know of it) taken to refer to things which we are not able to predict, even theoretically. We do not, however, know for sure if the system is non-deterministic (that is, truly random) or only apparently so.
Again, not a quantum physicist. But I believe that is the general state of affairs. See Wikipedia for more.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
how is the likeness of the numbers showing up making them less random? 7, 3 is as random as 494592349943, 2.5
While there are other random number generators, by far and away the most common "random number generator" is the Linear congruential generator.... the typical one that is used for most video games due to the fact that it can be configured using only integer-based arithmetic operations (no need for floating point overhead). That makes the generator extremely fast, but unfortunately predictable. Sadly, lousy constants are usually picked with many operating system vendors or compiler writers which make this rather poor generator even worse.
The problem is that the very non-random nature of the generator can show up when you are using it for very precise calculations or for something that doesn't take into the fact that the LCG algorithm really is just a simply line slope formula applied in an unusual context and with some constraints. There is certainly a need for better algorithms to generate numbers that avoid these problems, and if you can get these numbers from nature it makes the issue even better.
Still, I agree with the grandparent post that the physical phenomena being used is going to be influencing the results of the number generator in some fashion.... it will just be more disguised. In the past census data was used to generate "random number tables", which also has drawbacks of its own.
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Ian Ameline
The Commodore 64 could produce random numbers by sampling the white noise generator in the SID audio chip. They probably weren't as random as shining a laser through the diamond but I wonder if the difference is enough to matter...
Indeed, and that's why I described it as a "belief" of mine, and not a fact.
Big advantages of this is that it requires no outside information source, inexpensive and could be miniaturized to fit on an extension card. Then we all could put a random card next to our graphics card in our machines.
Finally a reason for socially inept people to buy diamonds!
Industrial grade diamonds are cheap. They are already found in various consumer gadgets that geeks may already have. :-)
"Matter is built on flaky foundations. Physicists have now confirmed that the apparently substantial stuff is actually no more than fluctuations in the quantum vacuum."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16095-its-confirmed-matter-is-merely-vacuum-fluctuations.html
Everything is random.
"The Higgs field is also thought to make a small contribution, giving mass to individual quarks as well as to electrons and some other particles. The Higgs field creates mass out of the quantum vacuum too, in the form of virtual Higgs bosons. So if the LHC confirms that the Higgs exists, it will mean all reality is virtual."
And if it's all virtual who or what is running the simulation? Or maybe it's self generating "I am because I think I am"
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I knew you were going to say that.
Wow, for one integer to be picked is infinitely rare, but two?!?! And both positive primes near zero... Wait a tic... those have all the markings of a psychologically random number! Sadly, it's impossible to say that's how they were selected, as they're just as likely to occur as anything else from a uniformly distributed random number generator over all possible numbers. Only Laplace's demon knows for sure...
Oh yeah baby... back with my VLB Diamond Viper 4MB of VRAM... and a 486DX-2 66 with 16MB I was styling'. The chicks just couldn't stay away.
You must have been rolling in the dough back then to have 16MB ram. 8MB about broke my bank.
Maybe read up on it, it was a little bit more involved than running the experiment for half an hour.
Thanks for posting about the Simtec Entropy Key. At only $56 (Qty 1) for a FIPS-140-2 Level 3 compliance type device based on quantum tunnels is pretty amazing. Just the buzz words, are worth that for any system advertised as secure.
"the measurements are random in a way that nothing in our ordinary surroundings is"
Nonsense. They are random in precisely the same way that a good bouncy roll of the dice are.
No. The bouncy dice are describable by classical physics. Our inability to predict is based upon our imprecise understanding of the path of the dice, their rotation, air density and movement, the geometry of the area landing in and bouncing about in, the understanding of the materials of the dice and objects it is bouncing against, etc.
In contrast this new method utilizes effects of quantum physics. That is inherently far less measurable and predictable.
Yeah I was a spoiled brat.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Random number generation is used in applied cryptography. That's the application for which it is useful to have a source of random numbers that can't be guessed by a sufficiently well funded opponent. In this case, it might be literally impossible for any opponent to be well-funded enough to defeat this.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I think basically everyone in the gaming biz is now using MT, which is a very good PRNG.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Really? No randomness? What if the universe conspired to make it completely impossible for us mere mortals to ever predict a number? This is what quantum physics tells us is happening.
As an example of an impossible to predict situation the universe made two copies of itself at a point where you choose a direction to turn (a simplification of the many-worlds hypothesis). One copy is where you make the decision to turn left and one where you make a decision to turn right. Just before the copy was made how would you have predicted which way you would have turned? No matter what prediction you make you'll be wrong in one of those universes. It's impossible to predict.
Quantum physics is impossible to predict. No amount of hidden variables can explain Bell inequalities. The only thing physicists are looking for now is an explanation of why it's impossible to predict. The many-worlds hypothesis is one such explanation.
Okay, fair enough. Is there any basis for this belief other than that you like it to be the case that the universe is deterministic? I sometimes like the universe to be a lollypop. It seldomly is. I'm saying this just to be an ass I guess, but still: why would this belief of yours be valuable, if it is backed by fact nor theory? Many people like to believe that a supreme being exists that wants to be friends with them. Is your belief in that category, or is there more to it?
Dilbert did it first, and better.
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-10-25/
If I believed that our entire reality was actually a simulation being run in a higher level universe, why wouldn't I expect complete determinism?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
So, it's random as far as Aspect can tell.
We'll get true randomness as soon as that last digit for pi is discovered.
There is no random. There is only random enough.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You must have been rolling in the dough back then to have 16MB ram. 8MB about broke my bank.
Well, I had a T5200 portable which had 14MB RAM (its maximum) along with a 100MB disk. It had a 20MHz 386 which had the protected-mode bug which was only supposed to affect 16MHz chips (maybe Toshiba just overclocked it) and a 387 chip, too. It also only had the lousy orange plasma VGA display, because they didn't release the color VGA LCD until a year later. Damn thing was built like a tank, and survived repeatedly being accidentally dropped onto concrete - impossible to kill the thing. It cost a few thousand, but hardly broke the bank.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Probably because he has a low threshold of tolerance for ambiguity and error in general. It's rather irritating to consider the probability that the universe is random when one prefers order.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
As a card-carrying atheist I don't believe in a space-genie either. When things one generally holds to be true are not currently provable with the knowledge one (we as humanity) has, that does not make them invalid nor meaningless. Nor does it require a space-genie. One is free to hold beliefs, and even to actively pursue their validation or invalidation. Einstein did this, in this very realm we are discussing. As I posted in another part of this thread, science has frequently believed "this is as deep as it goes!" only to be proven incorrect later on. I for one am not arrogant enough to believe that there cannot be some underlying deterministic cause for the phenomena we currently recognize as "random". And I would not respect the scientist who holds otherwise--but I would respect the scientist that believes there can exist phenomena without underlying deterministic cause.
Not really, the universe may indeed possess truly inherently random phenomena -- my *belief* may be wrong--that is why it is a "belief"... However, we have words for many concepts that provably do not exist, yet the words still have value...
But Einstein proposed a way to test it and he was proven wrong with the EPR paradox. To Einstein and Scientists Data is King, and it would be interesting to know what Einstein would have said after the test was done. What you are proposing isn't like Einstein at all and is more like the Space-Genie hypothesis. Science also doesn't believe that "this is as deep as it goes!" otherwise why put any effort into the LHC, Opera, Fermi Lab, or the numerous other labs trying to go deeper? Every Scientist knows that Einsteins Relativity is wrong and that the Standard model is wrong but they are the best we have right now.
I think it's an interesting discussion, determinism. It seems to underlie most of western physics, up to the point when quantum mechanics came to the scene. We're still recovering from that. My question is really about the underlying motivation for the belief. Is it philosophical? Is it because of some sense of mathematical elegance? Is it literate? I am for instance fine with randomness: at the moment our understanding is that the universe is random, but still causal. 100 years ago, we thought it was fully deterministic. Our understanding of causality has changed, although we really don't understand much of it. Determinism is passe. Why is determinism important? Why is it even desirable? I don't see it. But then again, I see poetic beauty in a universe where order and predictability arise from a chaos and randomness. But I am weird that way.
I've looked at your post 8 times so far, and it always returns 7 and 3 as random numbers. It's not so random when it always returns the same predictable values.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
If bouncy things were not competitive as a source of random information, then someone would be able to predict lottery powerball drawings, which are indeed governed by bouncy balls.
You have the GP's assertion wrong. He claimed that events describable by classical physics are just as random as quantum events. That is inherently false. Classical events are a practical source of randomness because of our insufficient description of the parameters of the event. That is quite different than quantum events where the parameters are inherently imprecise. With a sufficiently good description of the geometry of the cage, its rotation, the balls, etc would could predict powerball drawings.
You're both spoiled! I had 4Mb and only 2Mb on the card and thought I was kicking! Funny now when I have 8Gb on my netbook and the same on my desktop to think about how I spent more for a tiny couple of Mb of RAM back then than I did for my whole netbook now. I'll never forget though the first time I loaded up my Voodoo in my spanking new 133Mhz and loaded Unreal, I swear me and my friends just watched that opening demo for ages going "ooooh!". Man we were easily entertained back then.
as for TFA I never understood why getting a random number always seemed to be so hard, just take all the scores off the sports page, multiple by that last winning powerball numbers, then divide by how many pepperonis you got on your last pizza. Easy peasy!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I can put away that cup of really hot tea.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
OK, if we want to talk about fun hardware:
A DX2 66 486 with 64MB RAM, two 1GB SCSI disks and a CDROM with a 4MB VRAM card. But, that was just the desktop machine. It only clocked in at about $8K (work really sprung for that one) Then there was the decked out Indigo 2. Don't recall the RAM, but the MIPS 4400 upgrade was around 8K alone, and that was small potatoes compared to the $25K 256 layer Z-buffer video card that was added in. That's right - $25K for a video card that today is probably outpaced by pretty much anything you pull out of the recycling pile. And it was the low price of $25K because we bought 2 in a bundle with the upgrades. Originally they went for $38K.
Of course, all of those prices are totally blown away by the $8K 430MB WORM drive we purchased. To truly get how expensively stupid this purchase was, you have to understand how WORM drives operate. They basically had their own controller internally that worked with the internal hardware to position the write/read head as you progressed along the spiral. The problem was, there was no segmentation of the disk, no error correction, no guide tracks, or anything else. So, the entire process was based on the head placement mechanism being in the right place at the right point of the spin to write/read the data. The problem was, these parts would wear, so a disk was good across about 250-400 read-write cycles of the drive. Read that again - the drive could only be used less than 250 times reliably between the writing of a disk and the current reading. After 250, it got dicey, after 400, you could no longer read it. Oh, and just to compare it to today's BD disks, a WORM disk at the time sold for roughly $100 a piece in lots of 100.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I would please like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Then I could use it to populate my IV values safely and randomly.
Off the top of my head, I think this would work as a definition of what's expected of "random": the limit of the proportion of the number of a number's occurrence to the total number of samples taken as the number of samples taken approaches infinity for all numbers in the sample space are equal, and there does not exist a dominant strategy for guessing the next sampled number. Basically, each number has an equal chance of appearing, and there is no optimal way to predict any one number, which is all anyone would ask of a fair RNG.
Also, if you can predict quantum-randomness you'd have problems with causality.
Who ordered that?
you just HAD to be "that" guy didn't you....
Just because we can't know a position and vector of a particle now doesn't mean we won't ever be able to.
Yes it does. The Heisenburg uncertainty principle is not a limitation of technology. It's a law of the universe. It's like saying "just because gravity exists today doesn't mean it will exist sometime in the future."
A lot of tools have diamond blades.
Huh? +4 informative? I've been absent from /. for a good 5 years, but in my day that comment would have looked like
A lot of tools have diamond blades.
I love that in a scientist: he basically said "It doesn't fit my frame of reference, so my gut tells me it couldn't be right." But he published it anyways because the theory was sound.
A bit like the FTL neutrino's: "It must be wrong but we can't find the fault. Can anyone repeat our measurements".
Not hiding it because the data doesn't fit what they expected, but checking it (1500 times if I am correct) and publishing it if the results remain the same. With the caveat "It must be incorrect, but we can't find the fault". That is how science can advance with mega steps sometimes, by thinking "That can't be right, what the hell is happening here?" and being open about it (after checking it oft enough to prevent flooding the scientific community with flawed information).
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
that's brilliant !
-- no sig today
that's
This is exactly the effect driving /. .
No amount of hidden variables can explain Bell inequalities.
No amount of LOCAL hidden variables can explain the Bell inequalities.
Isn't the universe deterministic in the many-world interpretation? Every option will always be tried, even though people residing in the universe can not experience that.