Randomness
The term Randomness is often used in statistics to signify well defined statistical properties, such as lack of bias or correlation. Random is different from arbitrary, because to say that a variable is random means that the variable follows a probability distribution. Arbitrary on the other hand implies that there is no such determinable probability distribution for the variable.
Sourced
- For I do not believe that it is through the interference of Divine Providence ... that the spittle of a certain person moved, fell on a certain gnat in a certain place, and killed it.
- Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, 12th century, Friedländer translation
- The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
- Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1969
- How dare we speak of the laws of chance? Is not chance the antithesis of all law?
- Joseph Bertrand, Calcul des probabilités, 1889
- Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random.
- Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. II, 1969, section 3.1
- The sun comes up just about as often as it goes down, in the long run, but this doesn't make its motion random.
- Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming, Vol. II, 1969, section 3.3.2
Unsourced
- Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin.
- John von Neumann
- But when a rule is extremely complex, that which conforms to it passes for random.
- Gottfried Leibniz
- God doesn't play dice with the universe.
- Albert Einstein
- Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen
- Stephen Hawking
- I laugh at the predictable and crack the pseudorandom.
- Steven Roddis
- That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art.
- John Locke
- It's a cruel and random world, but the chaos is all so beautiful.
- Fullmetal Alchemist
- Random is originality, and originality is art.
- Anonymous