Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Devise a Way To Generate Provably Random Numbers Using Quantum Mechanics (newatlas.com)
No random number generator you've ever used is truly, provably random. Until now, that is. Researchers have used an experiment developed to test quantum mechanics to generate demonstrably random numbers, which could come in handy for encryption. From a report: The method uses photons to generate a string of random ones and zeros, and leans on the laws of physics to prove that these strings are truly random, rather than merely posing as random. The researchers say their work could improve digital security and cryptography. The challenge for existing random number generators is not only creating truly random numbers, but proving that those numbers are random. "It's hard to guarantee that a given classical source is really unpredictable," says Peter Bierhorst, a mathematician at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where this research took place. "Our quantum source and protocol is like a fail-safe. We're sure that no one can predict our numbers." For example, random number algorithms often rely on a source of data which may ultimately prove predictable, such as atmospheric noise. And however complex the algorithm, it's still applying consistent rules. Despite these potential imperfections, these methods are relied on in the day-to-day encryption of data. This team's method, however, makes use of the properties of quantum mechanics, or what Einstein described as "spooky action at a distance." Further reading: Wired, LiveScience, and CNET.
Mostly just for the random entertainment value: https://www.random.org/
int getRandomNumber() // chosen from random post number
{
return 1;
}
You're not fooling me. It's well known that the NSA incorporated backdoors into the fabric of the universe when they subverted the big bang.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
int getRandom() { // generated by dice roll
return 4;
}
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
I would have thought thermal noise in a resistor or semiconductor (which is in itself generated by subatomic so quantum, events) would be just as random.
It has already been established that thermal/shot component noise (most commonly from reversed diodes) is demonstrably statistically random and is based on quantum electrodynamic events.
TRNGs (True Random Number Generators) using this principle have been around for a while embedded in some hardware such as the Intel 82802 firmware hub found on some Intel mainboards
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
Ted Stevens, is that you??
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
Nice, I can finally upgrade my lava lamp entropy source to a quantum source that uses laser light on a crystal. Why? Because /dev/urandom is for peasants.
So we do have free will after all.
Nope, the multiverse is most likely correct. The big bang never stopped, it just went interdimensional and time itself is an illusion caused by the patterns which emerge when tracing a path along one of all potential possibilities. The interference pattern and statistical interpretation of it is just the probability that a particle you observe on your worldline goes in a particular direction at a particular velocity, but all of those possibilities are traced out on different worldlines. There's a reality where you're a supervillan and a reality where you're the richest person in the world, and then there's most realities where you're neither - each of those realities are practically infinite and expanding forward and backward in time in their derivations, but the likelihood you perceive one of the abnormal ones is significantly reduced. You probably can't picture yourself as a serial killer or helping people to the point you are literally made into a saint, but both exist somewhere in the multiverse. All your choices are irrelevant because they all happen.
However, this is really no different than other mathematical proofs.
No, it is very different from a mathematical proof. This proof relies on our understanding of quantum mechanics and photons. Mathematical proofs are far more fundamental in that they are true regardless of the properties of the universe you happen to be in at the time. That being said QM is one of the most accurately tested scientific laws there has ever been but, nevertheless, if an experiment tomorrow shows that it is wrong this "proof" might come crashing down.
That you won't know its random till you look at it.
Wikipedia has a list of available hardware random number generators from $7 on up. The ones that use direct quantum randomness seem to start at about a thousand euros, the cheaper ones using forms of noise. There isn't any way to predict atmospheric noise, since we're talking about a chaotic system that deals with interactions small enough that the uncertainty principle isn't completely swamped.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Difference between your description and reality is that the multiverse explanation removes all paradoxes from the quantum and relativistic worlds at all scales, while every other potential resolution fails to do so and usually create additional ones. That fact alone makes the multiverse interpretation the only plausible solution at this point in time.