Is it actually possible to choose a random number? Also, is the chance of flipping a coin and it landing on heads actually a 50-50 chance?
Q # 1 / Sure. Open a phone book. Close your eyes and point to one of the numbers on the page. The last two didgits will be a random number between 00 and 99. Q # 2 / Strickly speaking, even for a perfectly balanced coin there is some probability it will land on the edge and remain there. So maybe 49.999999 - 49.999999
Nope its not. Seems like everything is deterministic. Even computer has to rely on the clock or user's uncertainty to generate one. Not possible in my view. If you take into account all the variables b4 flipping the coin precisely you effectively have known the outcome.
Flipping a coin is a deterministic process and so if you know how hard and at what angle a coin is struck by a person's thumb then in principle you can say what side it will land on though measuring that and doing the calculations before the coin lands is a little too much to bother with. There's a great deal of work in the realm of cryptography which deals with how 'random' a random number generator really is. The one you get from computers are not random, only 'pseudo-random'. They have algorithms and use inputs with a great deal of possible values like the microsecond timer on the PC's clock. You can encrypt a message using a random sequence of symbols perfectly but if the sequence isn't random then its got flaws which if you're Mr CIA you'd be very interested in understanding. You can get 'better' random sequences by using such inputs as TV static. If you detune a TV so its not showing a channel but that white static everyone's familiar with then that is partly due to such things as the CMB and while it could in principle be determined if you knew enough about the universe given we can't measure the universe 14 billion years ago down to the atom the signal is effectively random. Some websites provide sequences produced from such inputs for the purposes of statistics people who need 'better than pseudo-random' randomness. I should point out there's a formal definition to 'random' and 'pseudo-random' for mathematicians. You can't say '1,2,3,4,5,6,.... is not random' just because you recognise the sequence. Like the lottery numbers, if you do enough sequences of digits you're going to get things you recognise but you could not have predicted before hand. If the lottery (here in the UK there are 6 balls + a bonus) results were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and then you had to guess the final ball there's no reason to say 6 compared to any other possible output. The sequence is random even if by hindsight you say "I have seen that before!".
In mathematics, a sequence of random numbers is a sequence in which you can't look at previous numbers in the sequence to figure out what future numbers will be. A (fair) coin flip is mathematically random because even though the motion and landing of the coin might be physically deterministic, if I tell you that I flipped a coin five times and the first four results were HTTT, you don't have any idea what the fifth flip will be.
Well no, obviously flipping a coin is not completely random. There are many deterministic factors which decide its outcome. Even not taking human beahiour into account - if you attached the coin to a computer generated random robot coin flipper - because the head side of coin is slightly heavier than the tail (or vice-versa depending on the coin), the sequence of results will not be random.
Different "patterns" on the faces: more/ less metal making up the face or whatever is on the coin. Minute difference, but there all the same.
8a3f2c67d18e453f269a342c873c (base 16) yeah, i guess that would be a random number. 1010111010101010101101010111101101010111010110 (base 2) random enough? how about: 102012012110201201012101201021010210010212010210201012 (base 3) uh, 5 picked out of thin air.
I meant randomly generated, as in from a computer or calculator. So far as if the human mind can pick a random number, I don't know.
There is no deterministic method, because all knowledge is historical. Since matter is distributed throughout space, you can't have simultaneous knowledge of all influences, prior to or during the toss. The toss occurs in a dynamic environment, which is changing until it lands.
