
They then published the results in a book that was intended to be useful to scientists and researchers in need of random sampling.

In 1947, the RAND Corporation created an electronic device that generated numbers using a random pulse generator. In the modern world, dice rolling and coin flipping have become insufficient for certain applications. Dice, dating back to roughly 2400 BCE, have been found in archeological sites in Egypt, and pyramidal-shaped dice (with four sides) date back to the 3rd millennium Sumer.Ī lot of time has passed since then. Humans have made use of randomness since ancient times.

Given that this imaginary digital coin can have as many 'sides' as needed to maintain a high level of randomness, modern RNGs are generally used in cryptography, computer simulations, online gambling, videogames, and many other applications. Random number generators (RNG) are hardware devices or software algorithms that spawn a different sequence of numbers (and/or symbols) every time they are activated - pretty much like tossing a coin but in the digital world.
