3 ms·

It's interesting that it relies on thermal noise to generate random numbers. Would this mean, theoretically, that the more stable the thermals of the system are

It's interesting that it relies on thermal noise to generate random numbers. Would this mean, theoretically, that the more stable the thermals of the system are, the less entropy, and the less random the numbers generated?

willis936 7y ago
Stable thermals are fine. Very low temperatures would be an issue. I wonder if LN2 affects the quality of the RNG values. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson–Nyquist_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson–Nyquist_noise
- dragontamer 7y ago
  Computers are made from transistors... so there's a good chance that its probably shot-noise instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_noise Johnson Nyquist noise is measured from resistors, and is therefore present in every circuit. Shot noise however, is more evident in transistors. ------------ I don't know if the AMD circuit is Shot-noise or Johnson Nyquist noise. But its important to remember that there are many sources of noise / randomness in normal circuits. The funny thing about true-random number generators: noise sources are all over the place! A beginner who plays with transistors will almost immediately "discover" a form of noise, and be forced to minimize it. With regard to "true random" circuits (of which there are many, many different kinds), they all isolate a particular noise, and then amplify it. You have to isolate a particular form of noise if you want to get a good entropy estimation. EDIT: It seems both shot noise and Johnson-Nyquist noise are white-noise, so maybe it doesn't matter. White noise + white noise should result in white noise, but its been a long time since I've taken this circuit class...
dragontamer 7y ago
Thermal noise is a very high source of true randomness. Thermal heat, at absurd amplification levels, fundamentally is asking the question: "How fast are the molecules moving at this location at point in time?" Which will affect the voltage and current on the line, which will affect the timing of the circuits, which will be amplified into uniform noise through some mechanism, generating true randomness. After all, we can't predict the location and velocity of molecules! Heisenberg uncertainty principle!
tlb 7y ago
By thermal noise, they don't mean the temperature going up and down with CPU load. Thermal noise comes from atoms jiggling, where the average kinetic energy of an atom is proportional to absolute temperature. If you put a sensitive-enough amplifier across a resistor passing current, it will detect individual electrons emerging from the maze of charges they just went through. It is very, very random.

willis936 7y ago

Stable thermals are fine. Very low temperatures would be an issue. I wonder if LN2 affects the quality of the RNG values. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson–Nyquist_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson–Nyquist_noise

dragontamer 7y ago
Computers are made from transistors... so there's a good chance that its probably shot-noise instead. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_noise Johnson Nyquist noise is measured from resistors, and is therefore present in every circuit. Shot noise however, is more evident in transistors. ------------ I don't know if the AMD circuit is Shot-noise or Johnson Nyquist noise. But its important to remember that there are many sources of noise / randomness in normal circuits. The funny thing about true-random number generators: noise sources are all over the place! A beginner who plays with transistors will almost immediately "discover" a form of noise, and be forced to minimize it. With regard to "true random" circuits (of which there are many, many different kinds), they all isolate a particular noise, and then amplify it. You have to isolate a particular form of noise if you want to get a good entropy estimation. EDIT: It seems both shot noise and Johnson-Nyquist noise are white-noise, so maybe it doesn't matter. White noise + white noise should result in white noise, but its been a long time since I've taken this circuit class...

dragontamer 7y ago

Thermal noise is a very high source of true randomness. Thermal heat, at absurd amplification levels, fundamentally is asking the question: "How fast are the molecules moving at this location at point in time?" Which will affect the voltage and current on the line, which will affect the timing of the circuits, which will be amplified into uniform noise through some mechanism, generating true randomness. After all, we can't predict the location and velocity of molecules! Heisenberg uncertainty principle!

tlb 7y ago

By thermal noise, they don't mean the temperature going up and down with CPU load. Thermal noise comes from atoms jiggling, where the average kinetic energy of an atom is proportional to absolute temperature. If you put a sensitive-enough amplifier across a resistor passing current, it will detect individual electrons emerging from the maze of charges they just went through. It is very, very random.