Originally posted by Bhayajis Bhayajis:
is there any way random numbers can be generated without using the Random
I don't suppose you are using Linux so you could just read from /dev/random?
You can do it mathematically, but pretty much any algorithm you'd come up with would either be (a) convergent (i.e. not very random) or (b) a re-implementation of java.math.Random. Basically you take a seed number (i.e. System.currentTimeMillis()) and use some function to generate a number. This is the first number in your series. You take that number and feed it back into your function to get the second random number in your series. Take the second number and feed it back in to get your third number and so on. The trick is to find a good function that evenly distributes the random numbers along the range you need without devolving into a predictable
pattern and PROVING that behavior. I don't have my descrete mathematics textbook with me, so I can't come up with a good function offhand. Try googling for the subject. It sounds like a simple task but it is very complex.