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It's also quite possible there is no such thing as "true" randomness. If one of the deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics is correct and there's no

It's also quite possible there is no such thing as "true" randomness. If one of the deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics is correct and there's no other source of randomness in the laws of physics, then TRNGs are just looking at the output of chaotic systems, just like PRNGs are. Random.org's atmospheric noise source isn't even quantum-mechanical, it's classical deterministic chaos. It's a PRNG with an enormous state.

tialaramex 6y ago
One of the unknown corner cases in this space is that it implies hidden state. We've ruled out Local Hidden State with physics experiments, but you can't rule out Global Hidden State that way. There could be in this sense say, a 1MB global "random seed" for our universe. In this model you can build Quantum Computers but when you build a really big one to, for example, attack traditional public key cryptography with Shor's algorithm it mysteriously doesn't work. This is because without you knowing it your Quantum Computer is using the global hidden state as scratch storage and it ran out. Almost everything about this scenario is terrible news, but on the bright side you can't attack modern cryptography with a Quantum Computer because it won't work.
irjustin 6y ago
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. It's not an unreasonable question/thought. The heisenberg uncertainty principle says we cannot know both position and momentum perfectly at the same time where I believe your comment is originating from? In theory, if we perfectly know the quantum information then a system's state is perfectly reproducible (probably not us... ultra aliens?) since no quantum information is ever lost (probably...). To my best understanding, this is the idea of the holographic principle[0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpDHn8viX8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpDHn8viX8
- SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
  No, just interpretations of QM, Heisenberg doesn't change anything here. Wikipedia has a nice table[0]. Any deterministic interpretation says that the results of experiment are all entirely predetermined by the entire past history of the universe. This includes Heisenberg's principle, since what you choose to measure is also deterministic, and thus the imprecision is predetermined. There's nothing in the laws of physics that rules out these interpretations. Thus, we can't definitively say that TRNGs exist in this universe. We also can't say that they don't, of course, since all the interpretations of QM make the same observable predictions and thus are equally likely to be correct. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics#Comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mec...

tialaramex 6y ago

One of the unknown corner cases in this space is that it implies hidden state. We've ruled out Local Hidden State with physics experiments, but you can't rule out Global Hidden State that way. There could be in this sense say, a 1MB global "random seed" for our universe. In this model you can build Quantum Computers but when you build a really big one to, for example, attack traditional public key cryptography with Shor's algorithm it mysteriously doesn't work. This is because without you knowing it your Quantum Computer is using the global hidden state as scratch storage and it ran out. Almost everything about this scenario is terrible news, but on the bright side you can't attack modern cryptography with a Quantum Computer because it won't work.

irjustin 6y ago

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. It's not an unreasonable question/thought. The heisenberg uncertainty principle says we cannot know both position and momentum perfectly at the same time where I believe your comment is originating from? In theory, if we perfectly know the quantum information then a system's state is perfectly reproducible (probably not us... ultra aliens?) since no quantum information is ever lost (probably...). To my best understanding, this is the idea of the holographic principle[0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpDHn8viX8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpDHn8viX8

SAI_Peregrinus 6y ago
No, just interpretations of QM, Heisenberg doesn't change anything here. Wikipedia has a nice table[0]. Any deterministic interpretation says that the results of experiment are all entirely predetermined by the entire past history of the universe. This includes Heisenberg's principle, since what you choose to measure is also deterministic, and thus the imprecision is predetermined. There's nothing in the laws of physics that rules out these interpretations. Thus, we can't definitively say that TRNGs exist in this universe. We also can't say that they don't, of course, since all the interpretations of QM make the same observable predictions and thus are equally likely to be correct. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics#Comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mec...