If your name gets picked for jury duty, it’s because a computer used a random number generator to select it. The same goes for tax audits or when you opt for a quick pick lottery ticket. But how can ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Using a single, chip-scale laser, scientists have managed to generate streams of completely random numbers at about 100 times the speed of the fastest random-numbers generator systems that are ...

Whether it’s a game of D&D or encrypting top-secret information, a wide array of methods are available for generating the needed random numbers with high enough entropy for their use case. For a ...

Whether it’s a game of D&D or encrypting top-secret information, a wide array of methods are available for generating the needed random numbers with high enough entropy for their use case. For a ...

Whenever we need to communicate in secret, a cryptographic key is needed. For this key to work, it must consist of numbers chosen at random without any structure - just the opposite of using the ...

The static from a old radio is a form of random interference caused by electromagnetic activity in the atmosphere (Credit: Getty Images) Our world runs on randomly generated numbers and without them a ...

RANDOMNESS IS A valuable commodity. Computer models of complex systems ranging from the weather to the stockmarket are voracious consumers of random numbers. Cryptography, too, relies heavily on ...