Many programming languages come with a function to give random numbers. I wonder how they implement that. Also, assuming the language doesn't have a random function, is there a way to generate them quickly? Another related question is if the language (and included libraries) had this random function included, could someone write a faster one just using the "primitives" of the language? I don't remember ever hearing about this in college but for probability simulation I have been using random numbers a lot and now am wondering how they do it and get it so there is no bias and not the same repeating pattern of numbers. Do they just reference some internal clocks of the computer? If so, wouldn't that then bias the numbers some?
I should clarify and say what if I only needed random numbers from 0 to 255 (8 bit) to simulate most card hands, die rolls... Is there a way I can write my own or has anyone on this site tinkered around with writing their own successfully?
It would be fun on a very fast computer to have some algorithm that gives me random numbers as quickly as possible (even storing them in memory or streaming them). For example, if I wanted 1 trillion random numbers to run a simulation without spending a lot of CPU cycles generating them so there is more available CPU speed to actually run the simulation.
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