Randomness is powerful. Think about a presidential poll: A random sample of just 400 people in the United States can accurately estimate Clinton's and Trump's support to within 5 percent (with 95 ...

Randomness is powerful. Think about a presidential poll: A random sample of just 400 people in the United States can accurately estimate Clinton’s and Trump’s support to within 5 percent (with 95 ...

Creating perfect randomness is surprisingly difficult. Even modern random number generators never generate completely ideal random numbers: small systematic errors can result in some numbers appearing ...

Randomness is incredibly useful. People often draw straws, throw dice or flip coins to make fair choices. Random numbers can enable auditors to make completely unbiased selections. Randomness is also ...

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. (A.A. Milne) If you were a rabbit, fleeing from a fox, would you be more successful if following a ...

Are you convinced that the shuffle mode on your iPod is messing with your mind? Or that certain numbers are bound to come up in the next lottery? If yes, you may be holding on to some serious ...

Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month.Become a Plus Member Excerpted from Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a ...

Ask a computer to pick a random number and you’ll probably get a response that isn’t completely unpredictable. Because they are deterministic automatons, computers struggle to generate numbers that ...

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. (A.A. Milne) If you were a rabbit, fleeing from a fox, would you be more successful if following a ...