How Random Number Generators Make The World Go Round?

Making the world go round might be a little strong, but random number generators are involved in more everyday processes than you might think. From choosing which song comes next on your music playlist, to make sure you get a fair game at the casino, random number generators play a small but important part in most of our lives. If you’re interested in learning a little more about this clever bit of technology, then we’ve got all you need to know right here.

True Random Number Generation 

True Random Number generation is highly time and energy-intensive. It involves, first of all, finding a seed number, that is random. Some examples of this are the coordinates of where lightning strikes and the rate of radioactive decay of a nuclear atom. Once you have this number, you can put it into a complex equation and generate a sequence of random numbers. Whilst this may seem simple, collecting these sorts of data accurately, and achieving an amount of data high enough to use time and time again is time-consuming, difficult, expensive and for most applications, simply unnecessary. However, in the case of high-security operations, these kinds of seed numbers are gathered and used to ensure that the technology improves security and efficiency. Operations like banks will use TRNGs to ensure that hackers cannot access information or funds that they don’t have permission to. Whilst it’s extremely expensive, it ensures their customers’ absolute safety and in preventing attacks, it works out cheaper in the long run.

Pseudo Random Number Generation 

Instead of doing this, a lot of random number generators or RNGs, use a seed number that is supplied by an almost random event, such as the time elapsed between starting a game and clicking a button. These are called Pseudo Random Number Generators or PRNGs. These RNGs are still highly random, it would be almost impossible for a human to work out that they weren’t, so these tend to be what we use in everyday applications. The example of a seed coming from the time elapsed between starting a game and clicking a button is a very common one. Random number generators are imperative in making many games work. In the case of these Canadian real money casinos, almost all of their games wouldn’t be possible without the use of a random number generator. All of the casinos listed offer slots games to their customers, which are the variety of games that we’re going to explain in this example.

Slots games need randomization to spin the reels, as they would on a real machine. The seed number for these games often comes from the millisecond in which the spin button is hit. This will change almost every single time, giving a random enough number to put into the equation which will generate a number, telling the machine when to stop. The equation is a fiendishly difficult one, to prevent players from figuring out the exact moment at which to press the button to gain the maximum amount. As well as this, games are regularly tested for randomness and to ensure that they match up to the return the player ratio that the casino advertises. RNGs are essential in keeping this sort of gaming fair and fun for everybody involved.

Random Number Generation Within Set Parameters

How Random Number Generators Make The World Go Round? | Spotify uses random number generation within set parameters
Spotify uses random number generation within set parameters

We’ve all set our music playlist to the random function, but how random is it? It turns out, not very. Whilst slot machines need to be as close to truly random as possible, within the realms of affordability, your music playlist does not need to be. If each track was chosen truly at random then there would be instances where you’d turn your music to shuffle and get the same track played twice in a row or even three times. Whilst this is how true randomness works, it’s not how we expect the shuffle function to behave and so developers for programs like Spotify need their random number generators to work within set parameters. In this instance, they want a song to be selected and played randomly, but with the caveat that it must only appear a maximum of once in three tracks. This makes the mathematical equation just a little more complex but gives the listener a better experience.

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