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On Sat, Jun 28, 2014 at 4:28 PM, Kai Krakow <hurikhan77@×××××.com> wrote: |
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[ ... ] |
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> I cannot follow your reasoning here - but I'd like to learn. Actually, I ran |
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> this multiple times and never saw long sets of the same character, even no |
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> short sets of the same character. The 0 or 1 is always rolled over into the |
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> next random addition. |
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That doesn't matter. Take a non-negative integer N; if you flip a coin |
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an infinite number of times, then the probability of the coin landing |
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on the same face N times in a row is 1. This means that it is |
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*guaranteed* to happen, and it *will* happen for any N you want: |
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1,000,000, a thousand billions, a gazillion. That is a mathematical |
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fact. |
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This of course is a consequence of "infinite" being really really |
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large, but it means that technically you cannot rule a RNG as broken |
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only because you saw that it produced the same result N times, which |
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is the crux of the Dilbert joke. |
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In practice, of course, it's a big sign that something is wrong. But |
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there is a non-zero probability that it's actually correct. |
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Because with randomness, you can never be sure. |
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Regards. |
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-- |
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Canek Peláez Valdés |
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Profesor de asignatura, Facultad de Ciencias |
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Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México |
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