Songwriter’s block can be a problem for even the world’s most successful musicians. They can sometimes overcome it by taking breaks, seeking new forms of inspiration, or simply pushing through. And if ...

Whether it’s a game of D&D or encrypting top-secret information, a wide array of methods are available for generating the needed random numbers with high enough entropy for their use case. For a ...

Using a single, chip-scale laser, scientists have managed to generate streams of completely random numbers at about 100 times the speed of the fastest random-numbers generator systems that are ...

“This is a marvelous step” toward more efficient random number generation, says Rajarshi Roy, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park who was not involved in the work. Random number ...

Lotteries, accidents and rolls of dice — the world around us is full of unpredictable events. Yet generating a truly random series of numbers for encryption has remained a surprisingly difficult task.

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Very little in this life is truly random. A coin flip is influenced ...

If your name gets picked for jury duty, it’s because a computer used a random number generator to select it. The same goes for tax audits or when you opt for a quick pick lottery ticket. But how can ...

Because computers don't understand words or phrases in the same way people can, they speak a language of their own, using only two symbols: 0 and 1. This computing parlance is known as binary code, ...

Random number generation is the Achilles heel of cryptography. Intel's Ivy Bridge processor incorporates its own, robust random number generator. Random number generation is the Achilles heel of ...

Microsoft Word has many, many tricks up its sleeve. The seven here will help you through some common snags in complex documents. Have a favorite we missed? Tell us about it in the comments. You can ...