Is there any Formula for Random?

I think it has to do with relativity... a bit like a previous poster said. The more you know about the influences on a situation the less random it is. So, from that it would be a person by person basis (random to that guy may not seem random to me and vice versa due to differing understandings of things). That being said, I am pretty sure that any calculation to truly pin down randomness would have to calculate infinity, but the ability to calculate it would then instantly make it not random. It's all about perception vs ability, in my opinion.

reply to post by confreak


There's an episode of "Numbers" that has the formula.

reply to post by ldyserenity




That guy could solve anything!

I wanted to reply to this thread earlier, however I did not have the time.

So I ask, is there a formula for true random?

By definition, there can not be a formula to generate / determine a true random number (otherwise it would be predictable). As you correctly stated, Pseudo Random Number Generators (PRNG) do use formulas and are therefore predictable (you only need to know the seed value).

A short side-note on PRNG:
There was an interesting hack a while back which involved an online poker company that posted a part of their source code (the shuffling algorithm) in order to show that their system was fair. In doing this however, they revealed that they used the system timer to seed the PRNG. (Thus, it made it simple to deduce who held what cards).

Source

If there is no formula which produces true randomness, then is there anything within this universe which is random? If we restarted the Universe all over again, would the universe produce a different result?

And that my friend, is the question that urged me to post a reply (and additionally earned you another star and flag).

My first response is that if the universe is in fact a closed system, then no, there is no such thing as randomness. We just lack the mathematical equations to properly derive, describe and understand what appear to be seemingly random events.

On the other hand, if that is true and there is no such thing as random (or chance, luck) then I ask what is the point?

We generally use PRNGs for simulations here, but if you need "true" randomness, you can get it from an RNG that looks at radioactive decay or one that uses wide-band radio noise.

How come no one said anything about my experimental design...if randomness exists, then there should be a random particle that follows no laws...

a random particle would self initiate a consequence without cause or effect...I want someone to give a function that would create other functions without consequence (input or output)

this random particle would violate laws of zero kelvin....yet no one said anything.

Like i always say...randomness is a consequence...and if it is a consequence then it can be predicted.

nothing in this world does not follows laws of mathematics, whether they be physics, chemistry, biology, and economics...and even life itself.

Randomness is our lack of knowledge to explain what we observe...

Just because we are not that smart does not mean things are random

Originally posted by LiveEquation
How come no one said anything about my experimental design...if randomness exists, then there should be a random particle that follows no laws...

Why would a random particle that obeys no laws be a requisite for randomness in nature? I see no basis for this.

Originally posted by john_bmth
Why would a random particle that obeys no laws be a requisite for randomness in nature? I see no basis for this.

Isn't that what random is? I think what you are saying indirectly is that all particles are non-random.

The four known forces in nature, do they have particles?

Strong Nuclear Force: Gluon particle
Electromagnetic: Photon particle
Weak Nuclear Force: Intermediate Vector Boson particle
Gravity: Graviton particle (maybe)

My hypothesis is that randomness has to be a force that either attracts or repels things from the norm. If it is a force then it has to have a particle.


I didn't want to delve much deeper into the theory. But i just wanted to show that no such particle exists and as far as i know there is no evidence for it.

no.


there is not.

if there was a 'formula' it would not be random.

Originally posted by confreak
reply to post by Havick007

 

Does chaos theory try explain why some things are hard to predict, for example weather patterns etc? That's what I'm getting as I read Wikipedia.

In that sense chaos theory agrees that there is no such thing as random? Rather either we don't know all the variables, or we just don't have precise enough equipment to calculate the exact variables, hence its sensitive dependency. Am I reading this correctly?

Yes, that is pretty correct. (I got my PhD in nonlinear dynamics). I wouldn't say "there is no such thing as random", but it is safe to say that "many processes which to observations appear to be random have underlying deterministic dynamics, but that determinism cannot be sufficiently resolved with the measurements."

It also means that if you observe something with coarse measurements, it can appear to be random (you can't see the determinism), but if you had really fine (high precision) measurements then it appears to be more and more deterministic.

In typical practice "random" or not random means that the behavior is well approximated by--or described by---the mathematics of probability. It is often foolish to say, like the Pope what something "IS", as opposed to "what it acts like".

Random and deterministic are human ideas which have certain mathematical properties. Real 'stuff' is what it is, but it can lean pretty far to one side or another.

Quantum mechanics brings up a yet another issue which is not scientifically resolved. I personally believe that there is no "intrinsic" randomness in QM (there is no obvious place to insert it in the equations of motion), but the effects of the known QM dynamics in the Heisenberg equation (rapidly spinning QM phases of 10^23 particles in an experimental apparatus, or even vacuum fluctuations) are sufficient to simulate "random" for any practical purpose.

Note that all the particle theories seem to have deterministic field theories at their core, though they are interpreted as yielding probabilities.

reply to post by confreak


Truely randomness must come from nature. Pseudo random numbers are the random numbers that our calculators, computers and machines etc generate - They use advanced algorithms that are ever increasingly becoming more complex to produce ever closer to random numbers - but they are never completely random.

Hence there have been people in the past that have cracked or calculated these pseudo random algorithms and have wrecked havoc in casinos on pokie machines etc

I personally think what we view as true randomness even within nature will eventually be shown to not be random when multiverses are considered etc - but thats just my opinon.

I second Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle of Physics....which had to do with predicting the location of orbiting electrons at any particular instance of time used in Quantum Mechanics.

This is THE formula for the equating of randomness in advanced Physics and Quantum Mechanics.

Werner Heisenberg (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to quantum mechanics and is best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory. In addition, he made important contributions to nuclear physics, quantum field theory, and particle physics.

In 1925, following pioneering work with Hendrik Kramers, Heisenberg developed matrix mechanics, which replaced the ad-hoc old quantum theory with modern quantum mechanics. The central assumption was that the classical concept of motion does not fit at the quantum level, and that electrons in an atom did not travel on sharply defined orbits. Rather, the motion was smeared out in a strange way: the Fourier transform of time only involving those frequencies that could be seen in quantum jumps.

Heisenberg's paper did not admit any unobservable quantities like the exact position of the electron in an orbit at any time; he only allowed the theorist to talk about the Fourier components of the motion. Since the Fourier components were not defined at the classical frequencies, they could not be used to construct an exact trajectory, so that the formalism could not answer certain overly precise questions about where the electron was or how fast it was going.

The most striking property of Heisenberg's infinite matrices for the position and momentum is that they do not commute. Heisenberg's canonical commutation relation indicates by how much:

[X,P] = X P - P X = i \hbar (see derivations below)


A mathematical statement of the principle is that every quantum state has the property that the root mean square (RMS) deviation of the position from its mean (the standard deviation of the x-distribution):

\sigma_x = \sqrt[\langle(x - \langle x\rangle)^2\rangle] \,

times the RMS deviation of the momentum from its mean (the standard deviation of p):

\sigma_p = \sqrt[\langle(p - \langle p \rangle)^2\rangle] \,

can never be smaller than a fixed fraction of Planck's constant:

\sigma_x \sigma_p \ge \hbar/2.

The uncertainty principle can be restated in terms of other measurement processes, which involves collapse of the wavefunction. When the position is initially localized by preparation, the wavefunction collapses to a narrow bump in an interval Δx > 0, and the momentum wavefunction becomes spread out. The particle's momentum is left uncertain by an amount inversely proportional to the accuracy of the position measurement:

\sigma_p \,\ge\,\pi\hbar/\Delta x.

If the initial preparation in Δx is understood as an observation or disturbance of the particles then this means that the uncertainty principle is related to the observer effect. However, this is not true in the case of the measurement process corresponding to the former inequality but only for the latter inequality.

en.wikipedia.org...