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/sci/ - Science & Math

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11241916 No.11241916 [Reply] [Original]

If you programmed a computer to spit out a random string of digits, activated it, then went back in time and did it again, would it make the same string of digits?
Would it be changed by activating it a second later than you did the first time around?

>> No.11241918

>>11241916
Yes
True randomness is physically impossible
And I dare anyone to change my mind

>> No.11241919

>>>/g/
In the C programming language, the rand() function takes a seed as is guaranteed to produce the exact same sequence for the same seed.
In the future, please post things like this in /sqt/ instead of creating a thread. Thanks!

>> No.11241926

>>11241919
No it would not be the same
It gets activated a second later
Assuming the seed is time() then it's different output

>> No.11241936

>>11241918
>>11241919
>>11241926
none of this is known brainlets all of you, going back in time is reatrded to begin with

>> No.11241945

>>11241916
depends on the generator, some use a timestamp
as a seed so with a different timestamp a different number is generated. those that don't use timestamp as a seed would indeed generate the same number as long as it's not using something sophisticated. (those on your PC that aren't using timestamp would generate the same number)

>> No.11242223
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11242223

Randomness is always a relative measure. It's the degree to which the string of digits resists pattern identification.

Like the concept of infinity, it's often confused with being a measurable thing.

>> No.11242260

>>11241916
There's hardware random number generators. Especially if it were your goal, you could have one sensitive enough to be influenced by minute variations in the user's bioelectric field.

>> No.11242323

>>11241936
No, we know how functions we built work.

>> No.11242399

>>11241916
>then went back in time
What does this mean, exactly?

>> No.11242484

>>11242223
But is there a connection between Infinity and randomness? Isn't that perhaps why it isn't measurable?

>> No.11242489

>>11241918
>what is quantum mechanics
https://qrng.anu.edu.au/

>> No.11242500

>>11241916
Assuming that the way you built the computer was by setting up a beam splitter and splitting quanta so that you get a quantum random number, then no it would not make the same string of digits.
To get at an answer to the spirit of your question: Yes, even if you truly went back in time and ran the function and literally every other particle was in exactly the same place it was the first time and you run the function at the exact "same time" relative to observation then you still would not get the same string of digits because of the inherent stochasticism in quantum behavior.

>> No.11242505

>>11242489
We don't understand the processes behind the generation of those random values, strange how physicists could just accept quantum mechanics as a "random" system, whatever the fuck that would be. Here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden-variable_theory

>> No.11242513
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11242513

>>11241916

Depending on the coding language u used, but no amateur what it wouldn’t be truly random. This is cuz computers all use pusedorandom algorithms in order to create seemingly random digits but rlly it just uses a seed which is determanisticly found and then just operates ont hat in a way such as maybe cubing the seed and taking the first and second digit and making that the new seed etc.

>> No.11242538

>>11241916
Depends on what the random number generator uses as a seed to generate the number. If you use time as seed and you generate the number at the exact same time again, then yes it will be the same.

>> No.11242602

>>11242505
>hidden variables
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem
Hidden variables can only exist if they are not local. While non-local hidden variables are a possible explanation of quantum mechanics, true randomness is much more widely accepted. I personally find non-local variables very counter intuitive.

>> No.11242644

>>11242602
You have a point. But what causes the system to be truly random then?
Is it not perhaps because of our own limitations as a species that we are unable to describe a pattern from the observations of that system (quantum mechanics), because it is to far removed from us (i.e. an epistemological issue, a problem with our knowledge of the system) or might it be (as the majority of physicists assume) the nature of the system itself (an ontological issue). It has to be either one or the other.
It's kind of like another version of the emergence problem.