Comment on: Is there a true random number generator?
0 22 Sep 2015 06:42 u/MarianOnEarth in v/programmingComment on: For 40 years, computer scientists looked for a solution that doesnt exist
I like the joke, but try to stay on subject.
Comment on: What do you guys think of NASA's programming guidelines? Are they too strict or do they make sense when code correctness is life-or-death?
For enterprise code this would be horrible because it forces the code to be very hands on and near the metal. It makes complete sense for NASA though. To reference Jurassic Park "Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists." If your code underflows, overflows, or generally bugs out it doesn't ignite 200 tons of multimillion-dollar liquid death on the users.
Comment on: Dumb Beginner HTML Question
Good job. Making mistakes is a big part of programming. For most projects it'll be what you spend the majority of your time on. Even the professionals make mistakes.
Comment on: For 40 years, computer scientists looked for a solution that doesnt exist
Ya, with our current understanding of math it's pretty safe to say P does not equal NP, and to prove it would involve creating a completely new field of math (think the invention of calculus big).
Comment on: For 40 years, computer scientists looked for a solution that doesnt exist
If you've ever had to convert an algorithm to the satisfiability problem, you'd know it's not that intuitive most of the time. That being said it did take 7 years to solve the max subarray problem.
Comment on: Old guys! What's your advice to younger developers?
I'm happy to inform all of you that the earth king has invited you to a vacation at Lake Laogai.
Comment on: Robocode- A programming game
Ya, Sourceforge has been adding adware to a lot of the sources on their site. You're code is probably safe, but I'm not going to download anything from SourceForge for a while.
No. Because we are working on deterministic machins, so a RNG is always going to be in some defined state. This means that when we ask the computer for a random number you have to also tell the computer how to get the random number (if you put x in a function you will always get y).
Now, you could use properties that are inherently more random like and algorithm based on the temperature of the room, ambient light, or decay of an isotope. Unfortunately as the dataset gets larger you'll find that there is a probability field of quantities that are measured. Some x's will then be more common than others. It is just the nature of nature.
So far there is no way for us to develop a RNG that is nondeterministic; it may be possible if we can develop a system that uses superposition (the switch is on, off, both on and off, and neither on nor off all at the same time), but when we measure a particle in superposition "the wave function collapses" and the particle is no long in superposition. The particle becomes deterministic and predictable by a probability field. Here's a Numberphile episode on the subject.
THAT BEING SAID: please keep thinking about this problem. Even if you don't find the solution, you'll find something interesting along the way.