Stopping short of firing a laser through a prism and taking readings of the "noise" and using those to calculate a random string of numbers, is there a way in pure math not affected by the computer itself to actually create random numbers?
I wanted to give you both best answer.
For my own curiosity i knew computing itself was predictable, so was wondering what other methods existed, hadnt thought of gieger counters, which could lead to some interesting game designs.
Chris
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Random number generators are algorithms that produce a sequence of numbers that _seems_ random. It's close enough for most applications.
True randomness can only be produced on a quantum level, or by using radioactive decay. For instance the ticks of a Geiger counter are truly random, afaik.
Pure math can never generate randomness though. The closest you can get is to calculate an irrational number like Pi and use its digits.
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If there was a particular system to get a list of "random" numbers, the fact a system is used makes it not random at all.
The closest thing you can do is (like you said) use a program that attempts to arrive at random numbers - but technically those aren't random either. They are most likely much less patterned than say trying to name random numbers ourselves (assuming amount of number places allowed is extremely high) but when it comes down to it, neither method is truthfully random.
It depends on what you're using this for, if not just for your own curiosity.