On Wed, 19 Feb 2014 12:38:38 +0100
Schmitz Thomas A.
Not only I’m bad at math, I don’t even remember the answers to my own questions - thanks Wolfgang for reminding me! I’m getting old and senile, should look into early retirement...
The random numbers generated are deterministic, that is each run will reproduce the same "random" sequence. If you are looking for more randomness, then you need to set "randomseed := numeric expression ;" using something that varies in a less predictable manner. For example, you can set randomseed := minute ; where minute is the number of minutes past the hour of when the job was started. So unless you have the habit of always processing your file at the same minute of the hour, then your colors will vary. Of course, if you want a truly random variable, then you need to use some other physical process, like detecting the moment of passage of cosmic radiation. One point of view is that chance is simply a reflection of our limited knowledge, our "bounded rationality". The classical expression of this is due to Laplace: \startquotation All events, even those that, because of their insignificance, seem not to be governed by the great laws of nature, are a consequence as necessary as the revolution of the Sun. Through our ignorance of their relationship to the system of the universe as a whole, we have them depend on some cause or on chance, according to whether they appear to occur with some regularity or not; But these imaginary causes have successively diminished with the advance of the limits of our knowledge, and disappear entirely before a sound philosophical analysis who sees in them but an expression of our ignorance, for which we ourselves are the real cause. \stopquotation Quantum mechanics has revised this point of view. However, you are the classicist, and according to Aristote an accident (συμβεβηκός) or chance (τὺχη αὐτόματον) or (σύμπτωμα) is just an encounter of two independent casual series. (And here I am exposing MY ignorance of Greek!) :) Alan