Tag Archives: Randomness

Randomness in Nature II

Posted on January 20, 2010 by

In a previous post we presented a MO question by Liza about randomness:  What is the explanation of the apparent randomness of high-level phenomena in nature? 1. Is it accepted that these phenomena are not really random, meaning that given enough … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Physics, Probability | Tagged , , , | 15 Comments

Randomness in Nature

Posted on December 27, 2009 by

Here is an excellent question asked by Liza on “Mathoverflow“. What is the explanation of the apparent randomness of high-level phenomena in nature? For example the distribution of females vs. males in a population (I am referring to randomness in terms … Continue reading →

Posted in Probability | Tagged , , , , | 22 Comments

Four Derandomization Problems

Posted on December 6, 2009 by

Polymath4 is devoted to a question about derandomization: To find a deterministic polynomial time algorithm for finding a k-digit prime.  So I (belatedly) devote this post to derandomization and, in particular, the following four problems. 1) Find a deterministic algorithm for primality 2) Find … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Science and Optimization, Probability | Tagged , , | 4 Comments