Path: news.io.com!uunet!in1.uu.net!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!dish.news.pipex. + net!pipex!news.smallworld.co.uk!arthur From: arthur@Smallworld.co.uk (Arthur Chance) Newsgroups: comp.arch.arithmetic Subject: Re: Psuedo Random Numbers Date: 09 Oct 1995 09:41:57 GMT Organization: Smallworldwide Lines: 12 Message-ID:References: <44vm6r$1q5@bug.rahul.net> + <4593t4$2nm0@b.stat.purdue.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: gold.smallworld.co.uk In-reply-to: hrubin@b.stat.purdue.edu's message of 8 Oct 1995 13:05:24 -0500 In article <4593t4$2nm0@b.stat.purdue.edu> hrubin@b.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubi n) writes: > The period is essentially unimprtant. A Tausworthe generator like > x[n] = x[n-460] + x[n-607] has period 2^(s-1)*(2^607 -1), where s > is the word length; this is in integer arithmetic. This class of > procedures are now known to have drawbacks. Could you explain that last sentence? I tend to use that style of RNG as a convenient and easily programmed workhorse, so if there are problems with it, I'd like to be aware of them. -- What if there were no hypothetical questions?