Terry Jones wrote: > Suppose you have a RNG with a cycle length of 5. There's nothing to stop an > algorithm from taking multiple already returned values and combining them > in some (deterministic) way to generate > 5 outcomes.
No, it's not. As long as the RNG output is the only input to the algorithm, and the algorithm is deterministic, it is not possible get more than N different outcomes. It doesn't matter what the algorithm does with the input. > If you > expanded what you meant by "internal states" to include the state of the > algorithm (as well as the state of the RNG), then I'd be more inclined to > agree. If the algorithm can start out with more than one initial state, then the RNG is not the only input. > Worse, if you have multiple threads / processes using the same RNG, the > individual threads could exhibit _much_ more random behavior Then you haven't got a deterministic algorithm. -- Greg _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
