Random Number Quotes (3 quotes)
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in the state of sin. For, as has been pointed out several times, there is no such thing as a random number—there are only methods to produce random numbers, and a strict arithmetic procedure of course is not such a method.
In paper delivered at a symposium on the Monte Carlo method. 'Various Techniques Used in Connection with Random Digits', Journal of Research of the National Bureau of Standards, Appl. Math. Series, Vol. 3 (1951), 3, 36. Reprinted in John von Neumann: Collected Works (1963), Vol. 5, 700. Also often seen misquoted (?) as “Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is, of course, living in a state of sin.”
No shreds of dignity encumber
The undistinguished Random Number
He has, so sad a lot is his,
No reason to be what he is.
The undistinguished Random Number
He has, so sad a lot is his,
No reason to be what he is.
In Kenneth Ewart Boulding and Richard P. Beilock (Ed.), Illustrating Economics: Beasts, Ballads and Aphorisms (1980, 2009), 153.
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance.
Title of an article (1970). Quoted by M. Gardner (1977), 169. Cited in Gideon Keren and Charles Lewis, A Handbook for data analysis in the behavioral sciences (), 390.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
