On Wed, 11 Jul 2007, Derek Holzer wrote:
yes, of course I meant a non-repeating number. I was concentrating on the
end-results rather then the details of the process, but it's a useful
distinction when trying to document it. Thanks.
The end-result that you should stress is that there are going to be no
duplicates, because they would conflict. All of the rest is secondary,
especially randomness.
Half the point of referencing the Dilbert strip is the repetition.
Independently-random numbers can be duplicates.
example 1. Picking two numbers from 0 to 99 you have a 1% chance that they
are the same.
example 2. If $0 uses uniformly-random numbers from 1000 to 9999 and you
instantiate at least 110 abstractions you have more chances of getting
duplicates than not. (This is usually known under the name "Birthday
paradox")
example 3. the original Birthday paradox. the probability of N people of
having shared birthdays:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:050329-birthday2.png
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