There are several applications for the creation of random numbers, including gambling, board games, Monte Carlo methods, and random sampling. The majority of physics processes, including gravitational acceleration, are deterministic, which means they always produce the same result from the same initial condition.
Some significant exceptions include radioactive decay and quantum measurement, both portrayed in the underlying physics as truly random processes. People employ pseudorandom numbers, which ideally possess the unpredictability of a truly random sequence, despite being produced by a deterministic process, since these methods are not realistic sources of random numbers.
The deterministic process in many applications is a computer technique known as a pseudorandom number generator, which must first be given a number known as a random seed. Since the same seed will always produce the same sequence, it is crucial to choose the seed carefully and keep it secret, especially in security applications where the pattern’s unpredictable nature is a crucial component.
People have sometimes employed physical sources of random numbers, such as radioactive decay, ambient electromagnetic noise gathered from a radio tuned between stations, or interspersed timings of people’s keystrokes, in situations where it is crucial that the sequence be clearly unpredictable.
