On Fri, 27 Apr 2001 16:40:15 kevin lyda wrote:
> how can i analyse a stream of numbers to see how random they are?
> does anyone have any web pages that discuss this? i napped too much
> in stats - a bad course to take in the spring, even in buffalo it got
> too hot for stats around april...
>> i'm looking to compare the numbers returned from egd to the ones
> returned
> from /dev/random on linux (and maybe openbsd if i'm bored).
Well, one thing you could do is graph and compare the distribution of
each.
You should do the tests multiple times. Also if you're dividing the range
into "n" buckets, output a graph every n*10 samples and take at least
n*100 samples. You may want to measure the standard deviation at each
stage, or you may not as it might not mean enough to you if you slept
through stats.
What I'd like to see from a random number generator is a a graph that
looks very "noisy" at a low sample stage and evolves into a slightly shaky
horizontal line as you take more samples.
M.
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