Physics duo describe a way to guarantee true randomness
(Phys.org) -- In the natural world, it seems randomness is all around. Walk through a forest for example and it appears completely random, despite the fact that natural patterns emerge at almost every turn. In the human world, randomness is valued by all manner of people in a variety of circumstances, from testers of systems to ensure that weaknesses show up before products are sold to the public, to cryptologists, to those that run casinos where randomness ensures the house will win far more often than not. Unfortunately, guaranteeing true randomness is not something that comes easy. Take the lowly coin toss for example. A slight difference in weight on the “heads” side may cause the “tales” side to turn up a hundredth of a percentage point more often. Because of this, new work by a pair of physicists is catching the attention of people across a wide swath of...