Why is it impossible to produce truly random numbers?
- by Vinoth Kumar
I was trying to solve a hobby problem that required generating a million random numbers. But I quickly realized, it is becoming difficult to make them unique. I picked up Algorithm Design Manual to read about random number generation.
It has the following paragraph that I am fully not able to understand.
Unfortunately, generating random numbers looks a lot easier than it really is. Indeed, it is fundamentally impossible to produce truly random numbers on any deterministic device. Von Neumann [Neu63] said it best: “Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.” The best we can hope for are pseudo-random numbers, a stream of numbers that appear as if they were generated randomly.
Why is it impossible to produce truly random numbers in any deterministic device? What does this sentence mean?
