Back to Basics

Nice question. I was a comp sci major and this was always an interesting question.

I think by random we tend to mean "pseudo-random" as most people will contend that nothing done by a computer can be truly random.

I think the key is creating a pool of possibilities such that, statistically, choosing one item from the pool seems random in nature. So for example, with computers a clock with several significant digits is used for random things. If we then take a sample from the clock, which is a large pool of possibilities, at some non-related event occurence, like the end of a song in iTunes, then we can say it’s about as random as we need it to be, even though it’s not truly random.

I know much more can and has been written on the topic. It’s very interesting as is math in general. I’m sure there’s a math savvy person out there that can state it better than I can.