Naturally Random Numbers
Albert Einstein's dictum "God does not play dice" is a concise expression of determinism - the belief that the past fully determines the future. Had it been possible to write down all the required equations and feasible to solve them, we would have had a complete picture of the future.
Quantum mechanics recognized randomness as a natural phenomenon of the microworld. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to know simultaneously the position and the velocity of an electron. The uncertainty is not due to an inaccuracy of our instruments but is a matter of principle: the life of a particle is made undeterministic by randomness ruling in the microworld.
Very recently researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Erlangen, Germany, came up with a way to exploit the quantum randomness to generate absolutely true random numbers.
Random numbers are at the heart of numerous algorithms and applications. On a large scale, random numbers are needed for the security of data encryption and for the reliability simulation of economic processes. Random numbers are used by educational sites to produce an endless stream of worksheets and exercises.
Computer based random number generators use specially developed formulas to produce a sequence of pseudorandom numbers - numbers that are random-like, according to various criteria.
To generate truly random numbers, the Max Planck scientists split a laser beam and let the resulting parts reach the detector devices via different paths through vacuum. The difference in intensity of the two beams was an indication of the quantum noise.
The vacuum is not actually empty. Particles pop up spontaneously from non-existence and then disappear again into nothing. Understanding of this phenomenon led the British scientist Stephen Hawking to the discovery of glow around black holes.
The grand theory of everything is not here yet. It is wonderful nonetheless how the large scale determinism and the small scale randomness interplay. The Max Planck scientists just found another link between the two.