On Dec 12, 2007 1:16 PM, tedd <tedd.sperling@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > At 10:17 AM -0500 12/12/07, Robert Cummings wrote: > > > In my ancient past I worked with a x-ray detector and we simply > >> truncated to the tens digit -- that was pretty random. > > > >Random seeming you mean. As mentioned in the original post, just because > >the timeline and sample space is immense doesn't make it random, it just > >makes it difficult to guess. In fact, someone already mentioned the case > >of computers in casinos that can predict the landing spot of a roulette > >ball. > > Just because someone said it, doesn't mean it's true. > pfft; just because you dont believe it doenst mean its false. the show was on pbs. there were 2 guys studying chaos theory. its a typical story. one guy thinks he can do it.. talks the other guy into dropping out of college, then they really dig in. basically they way it worked is, they could predict a portion of the wheel where the ball would land, not the exact position. in fact they could get the result within 1/8 of the wheel. this turned out to be very convenient, because they would bet on an eighth of the table size every time, whereas others would be on an exact position of the table. this appeared inconspicuous. they then trained their people to make conservative bets to further avert attention. if pbs had a database that actually worked, i would find the name of the program and have more specific details for you. I remember in the old days where they used roulette wheels to > generate random lists. > get with the times; these are the days of decaying isotopes :-O -nathan
