Yes, that’s what happens to me every week!
Helen
Hi, Everyone,
These questions have been on my mind for about a year now, so I appreciate that so many of you who understand higher math(s) will give me your thoughts on the subject!!
Helen
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There are a few people who actually win almost once a month…month after month! It is just luck!
Helen
This is a bit out of topic, but I think it helps understand how the probability that by entering numbers randomly, some of them will repeat is much greater than what one would expect
Let’s say we have 50 randon people (for example, first 50 people who answer under a post) : which is the chance that 2 of them share the same birthday?
More or less it’s the same to pick 50 numbers from 1 to 365 , where each number from 1 to 365 is a consecutive day of the year, and pick one number twice.
Intuitively one could say that, since 50 is more or less 1/7 of 365, your chance of birthday sharing will be about 14% , but really it is 97%
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It depends. If you use a true random generator or a cryptographically secure random number generator, then the output is exactly as it should be - random (or at least “random enough”). However, true randomness is “expensive” (meaning: hard to calculate), so most pseudo random number generators do not produce really random output.
That being said, as was already mentioned: If you ask a true random number generator for five numbers, it is possible that you’ll recieve the number 52 twice, as (ideally) every number has the same probability to be chosen (and can therefore also occur more than once). A (hopefully more easy) example: If you have a random number generator that can only produce head (0) or tails (1) (for example a coin), and query (throw) it five times, all of the following combinations have the same probability:
00000
10010
01011
I do not know if your RNG actually produces “strong” randomness, but your results are entirely possible with a strong RNG.
However, lets say that I give you two examples. For one example I’ve actually thrown a coin and the other is fake, just something I’ve made up:
0101010101
1101000110
Which one would you say is the one where I’ve actually flipped a coin? (Remember: both have the exact same probability to actually happen). That is something that is linked to Kolmogorov Complexity.
P.S.: Does anyone know wether the postbot uses a strong PRNG?
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I can’t remember if anyone’s mentioned it, but random.org has a function for random numbers without repitition. Under numbers → sequences
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Wow!
Thanks to all for your fascinating responses!
I found this article online, that explains some of the ideas people mentioned above!
I Googled today to get my random numbers, and I noticed at the top some variations offered!
I touched “without repeats” and it offered this:
[
Non Repeated Random Numbers Generator
[image]
https://mathcracker.com › random-numbers-generator-n…
](Non Repeated Random Numbers Generator - MathCracker.com)
Using this generator to get a sequence of non-repeated random numbers, specifying the minimum and maximum values that you need.
So, people are offering more random choices on Google, now!
Helen