Patterns hidden from simple algorithms
Name
cacm-tp.pdf
Size
73.39 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9119f7abd405c5015986a04fc72dca79
Author(s)
Sudan, Madhu
Date Issued
April 2011
Journal
Communications of the ACM
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
Citation
Sudan, Madhu. Patterns Hidden from Simple Algorithms. Communications of the ACM 54, no. 4 (April 1, 2011): 107.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Is the number 9021960864034418159813 random? Educated opinions might
vary from “No! No single string can be random,” to the more contemptuous
”Come on! Those are just the 714th to 733rd digits of π.” Yet, to my limited
mind, the string did appear random. Is there a way to use some formal
mathematics to justify my naïveté? The modern theory of pseudorandomness indeed manages to explain such phenomena, where strings appear random to simple minds. The key, this theory argues, is that randomness is really in the “eyes of the beholder,” or rather in the computing power of the tester of randomness. More things appear random to simpler, or resource limited, algorithms than to complex, powerful, algorithms.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/1924421.1924445
