Random numbers generated by a computer are not random. They are produced by an algorithm, which usually transforms a seed into a pseudo-random number, and another seed.
Excel's random number generator is:
sn+1 = (9821 sn + 211327) mod 1,000,000
xn+1 = sn+1/1,000,000
The best way to generate a random number is with a hardware random number generator. This is a piece of electronics that plugs into a computer and produces genuine random numbers as opposed to the pseudo-random numbers that are produced by a computer program. The usual method is to amplify noise generated by a resistor or a semi-conductor diode and feed this to a comparator or Schmitt trigger. If you sample the output you get a series of bits which are statistically independent. These can be assembled into bytes, integers or floating point numbers and then, into random numbers from other distributions.
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Hope this helps.
Kind regards, Al.
This message was edited by Al Chara on 2002-04-02 07:29