A Quote by John von Neumann

Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin. For, as has been pointed out several times, there is no such thing as a random number - there are only methods to produce random numbers, and a strict arithmetic procedure of course is not such a method.

John von Neumann

Quote Topics

Any Arithmetic Been Considers Course Method Methods Number Numbers Only Out Pointed Procedure Produce Producing Random Several Sin State Strict Thing Times

Quote Author

John von Neumann
American - Mathematician
December 28, 1903 - February 8, 1957

Any one who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.

John von Neumann

Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin.

John von Neumann

Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random

Donald Knuth

While we can prove that almost all numbers in the continuum are random, we cannot prove that any specific number is indeed random.

Heinz Pagels

I think nobody would claim that random genetic drift is capable of producing adaptation, that is to say the illusion of design. Random genetic drift can't produce wings that are good at flying, or eyes that are good at seeing, or legs that are good at running. But random genetic drift probably is very important in driving evolution at the molecular genetic level.

Richard Dawkins

What's invaluable about actually going to the places you want to write about are the random accidental things that happen. Random, accidental detail is the best way to make a setting convincing. You can of course invent your own random details, and sometimes I will also mash up real incidents.

Zachary Lazar

I have been teaching you all the methods of meditation. You can choose any method that suits you. There are only one hundred and twelve methods; there is no possibility of adding more. It is exhaustive. All the methods possible have been explored. The simplest is witnessing.

Rajneesh

Random political acts produce random political results. Why waste even a rock?

Abbie Hoffman

Random chance was not a sufficient explanation of the Universe---in fact, random chance was not sufficient to explain random chance; the pot could not hold itself.

Robert A. Heinlein

C being what it is lacks support for multiple return values, so the notion that it is meaningful to pass pointers to memory objects into which any random function may write random values without having a clue where they point, has not been debunked as the sheer idiocy it really is.

Erik Naggum

I began in 1976, with small abstract paintings that allowed me to do what I had never let myself do: put something down at random. And then, of course, I realized that it never can be random. It was all a way of opening a door for me. If I don't know what's coming - that is, if I have no hard-and-fast image, as I have with a photographic original - then arbitrary choice and chance play an important part.

Gerhard Richter

Don't say random stuff. It makes me do random things

Onew

Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random.

Richard Dawkins

Even scientific knowledge, if there is anything to it, is not a random observation of random objects; for the critical objectivity of significant knowledge is attained as a practice only philosophically in inner action.