Intel did something like this with the PIII I think. Instead of a
radioactive counter, it uses Brownian motion to generate the seed.
Pretty damn random, it seems to me.

PB

Of course, in my philosophy, nothing is random.

tedd wrote:
> 
> >Rick,
> >
> >I have spent many years working in probability theory and have often used
> >computer random number generators (RNGs).
> 
> -snip-
> 
> Very good explanation of a random number generator. Thanks.
> 
> Many years ago, myself and a couple of other geeks thought of a way a
> create random number generator -- which was to use a radioactive counter.
> The number of "hits" per second was considerable -- in the ten of
> thousands. But then we would take the least significant number (to whatever
> number of digits you wanted) and we believed that number was truly random.
> No one to my knowledge has ever proved us wrong or right. What do you
> think? Is there some underlying periodic that would invalidate our solution?
> 
> I can't help but think that any number generated by a computer could not be
> truly random unless it derived its randomness from nature.
> 
> tedd
> 
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