Pseudorandomness — how a computer rolls dice

About this app

A random number generator is a fixed rule: same seed, same sequence, and eventually the loop closes. Middle-square, a linear congruential generator with freely adjustable parameters, RANDU, a shift register and xorshift side by side — good ones and deliberately bad ones. Four views reveal what a list of numbers hides: the rule with values plugged in, the cycle as a rho shape, the scatter of consecutive pairs plus a rotatable cloud of triples (RANDU collapses into 15 planes), and a histogram.

Subject: Computer science

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