On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 6:47 PM, Lie Ryan <lie.1...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 12/20/2009 2:53 PM, sturlamolden wrote: >> >> On 20 Des, 01:46, Lie Ryan<lie.1...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Not necessarily, you only need to be certain that the two streams don't >>> overlap in any reasonable amount of time. For that purpose, you can use >>> a PRNG that have extremely high period like Mersenne Twister and puts >>> the generators to very distant states. >> >> Except there is no way to find two very distant states and prove they >> are distant enough. >> > Except only theoretical scientist feel the need to prove it and perhaps > perhaps for cryptographic-level security. Random number for games, random > number for tmp files, and 99.99% random number users doesn't really need > such proves.
But the OP case mostly like falls in your estimated 0.01% case. PRNG quality is essential for reliable Monte Carlo procedures. I don't think long period is enough to guarantee those good properties for // random generators - at least it is not obvious to me. David -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
