A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates
Encyclopedia
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
by the RAND Corporation. The book, consisting primarily of a random number table
Random number table
Random number tables have been used in statistics for tasks such as selected random samples. This was much more effective than manually selecting the random samples...
, was an important 20th century work in the field of statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
and random number
Random number
Random number may refer to:* A number generated for or part of a set exhibiting statistical randomness.* A random sequence obtained from a stochastic process.* An algorithmically random sequence in algorithmic information theory....
s. It was produced starting in 1947 by an electronic simulation of a roulette wheel attached to a computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
, the results of which were then carefully filtered and tested before being used to generate the table. The RAND table was an important breakthrough in delivering random numbers, because such a large and carefully prepared table had never before been available. In addition to being available in book form, one could also order the digits on a series of punched card
Punched card
A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...
s.
The main use of the tables was in statistics and the experimental design of scientific experiments, especially those which employed the Monte Carlo method
Monte Carlo method
Monte Carlo methods are a class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to compute their results. Monte Carlo methods are often used in computer simulations of physical and mathematical systems...
; in cryptography
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
, they have also been used as "nothing up my sleeve number
Nothing up my sleeve number
In cryptography, nothing up my sleeve numbers are any numbers which, by their construction, are above suspicion of hidden properties. They are used in creating cryptographic functions such as hashes and ciphers. These algorithms often need randomized constants for mixing or initialization purposes...
s", for example in the design of the Khafre cipher. The book was one of the last of a series of random number tables produced from the mid-1920s through the 1950s, after which the development of high speed computers allowed faster operation through the generation of pseudorandom numbers rather than reading them from tables.
The book was reissued in 2001 (ISBN 0-8330-3047-7) with a new foreword by RAND Executive Vice President Michael D. Rich
Michael D. Rich
Michael Rich is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the RAND Corporation, the institution's highest-ranking position, which he has held since November 2011. Mr. Rich became the fifth president and CEO of the Santa Monica, Calif.,-based research institution, succeeding James A. Thomson, who...
. It has generated many humorous user reviews on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
.
The digits and the deviates
Standard normal deviate
A standard normal deviate is a normally distributed random variable with expected value 0 and variance 1. A fuller term is standard normal random variable...
are available for free online, at: Datafile: A Million Random Digits and 100,000 Normal Deviates. The text of the book is also available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1418/. They begin:
- 1, 0, 0, 9, 7, 3, 2, 5, 3, 3, 7, 6, 5, 2, 0, 1, 3, 5, ...