Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss random and pseudorandom numbers. Randomness will be familiar to anybody who’s bought a lottery ticket or shuffled a pack of cards. But there’s also a phenomenon known as pseudo-randomness –numbers which look random but aren’t. So why are these numbers useful and how can they be generated? Melvyn is joined by Marcus du Sautoy, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford; Colva Roney-Dougal, Senior Lecturer in Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews; and Timothy Gowers, Royal Society Research Professor in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
Tags / chance
Tagged with “chance”
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In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg: Random and Pseudorandom
Tagged with bbc in our time science mathematics randomness chance numbers
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The Digital Human: Chance
Aleks Krotoski explores whether the web is killing serendipity? Is it reducing our opportunity for chance encounters? Or is it possible to engineer these ‘happy accidents’ in the digital world ?
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Samuel Vriezen: 20 Worlds (2005)
Two pianists journey together through a circular universe of twenty possible worlds. The worlds appear and disappear one by one, echoed between the two piano parts, and up to four of them may be present at the same time in a gradually shifting multi-cultural mosaic of musical worlds.In this piece, just as in the 5 extremely short “possible world” pieces I wrote in 2003, a ‘world’ is identified by a typical basic motivic gesture. Each ‘world’ varies on its basic gesture according to its own laws. These twenty worlds (Possible Worlds nr. 6-25?) are then intertwined to appear in eighty numbered sections. The eighty sections are arranged in a circular way: section 1 can follow section 80. The odd sections are only played by pianist I. Pianist II plays the even sections. Taken together, the odd and the even sections make use of the same material. 20 Worlds is dedicated to Dante Oei. If not for the many conversations we’ve had about Cage, Xenakis, Sibelius, etc. and his wonderful insights and intuitions about music, a piece like this would have been unlikely. Samuel Vriezen Amsterdam, October 19, 2005http://www.alt-classical.com/2009/12/21/samuel-vriezen-20-worlds-2005/
Tagged with chance indetermenacy piano improv
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Leonard Mlodinow on randomness and his book The Drunkard’s Walk
Leonard Mlodinow, of the California Institute of Technology is the author of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. His lecture on the subject of randomness was presented by the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario on May 6th, 2009.
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Radiolab: Stochasticity
This hour, Radiolab examines Stochasticity, which is just a wonderfully slippery and smarty-pants word for randomness. How big a role does randomness play in our lives? Do we live in a world of magic and meaning or … is it all just chance and happenstance? To tackle this question, we look at the role chance and randomness play in sports, lottery tickets, and even the cells in our own body. Along the way, we talk to a woman suddenly consumed by a frenzied gambling addiction, two friends whose meeting seems purely providential, and some very noisy bacteria.