Pokerstars shuffle sources

[sakki]

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If there was ever a way for us to take into account every single thing that would influence these measurements, we could predict the outcome.

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Yes, that's true. But then the measurement wouldn't anymore be random. The definition of the word includes the uncertainty.

I guess a more important point is that no algorithm is capable of producing truly random numbers.

[magiluke]

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Yes, that's true. But then the measurement wouldn't anymore be random. The definition of the word includes the uncertainty.

I guess a more important point is that no algorithm is capable of producing truly random numbers.

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No algorithm, or anything!

Anyway, I think you are missing the point here. Just because you don't know the measurements doesn't mean it's random.

Let me steal some stuff from Wikipedia (I love it!):

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The word random is used to express apparent lack of purpose or cause. ... Note that the bias that "everything has a purpose or cause" is actually implicit in the expression "apparent lack of purpose or cause".

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Here's the top link on the bottom of that Wikipedia article. It's kind of neat.

Also, here's a definition given by a link I found in Random.org (the source you provided) (link):

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A chaotic source is a physical system that is dominated by chaos. A small change in the physical system now, will increasingly impact future conditions within the physical system over time. The impact of a small change compounds over time in such a way that correlating between the disturbed state and future conditions becomes intractable.

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As according to this source, "a digital snapshot of a physical chaotic process is obtained" to use as a seed for the random number. But as according to the definition above, any "digital snapshot" is directly influence by previous states of that source.

Also, here's a link to Wikipedia's article on determinism, because that is important too.