Comment by testaccount28
7 hours ago
how can i pick a real number at random though?
i tried Math.random(), but that gave a rational number. i'm very lucky i guess?
7 hours ago
how can i pick a real number at random though?
i tried Math.random(), but that gave a rational number. i'm very lucky i guess?
You can't actually pick real numbers at random. You especially can't do it on a computer, since all numbers representable in a finite number of digits or bits are rational.
How did you test the output of Math.random() for transcendence?
When you apply the same test to the output of Math.PI, does it pass?
All floating point numbers are rational.
Well, except for inf, -inf, and nan.
1 reply →
Pick a digit, repeat, don't stop.
Exactly right. You can pick and use real numbers, as long as they are only queried to finite precision. There are lots of super cool algorithms for doing this!
That's just saying that you can pick and use rational numbers (which are a subset of the reals.)
At no point will your number be transcendental (or even irrational).
And don’t die.
Use an analog computer. Sample a voltage. Congrats.
Sample it with what? An infinite precision ADC?
This is how old temperature-noise based TRNGs can be attacked (modern ones use a different technique, usually a ring-oscillater with whitening... although i have heard noise-based is coming back but i've been out of the loop for a while)
Use an analog computer how, to do what? An analog computer can do analog operations on analog signals, but you can't get an irrational number out of it ... this can be viewed as a sort of monad.