Quote:
Originally Posted by kapw7
PRNG is a pseudorandom generator. A PRNG takes an initial (secret) key and spits out a much longer sequence of digits. It appears to be random for anyone who doesn't know the secret key (or doesn't have some alien super powerful computer) but it is completely predictable when you do know the secret key. So it's ideal for cryptography but not for shuffling cards.
Pseudo random is not really any good for crypto purposes also. Prng can produce lots of numbers fast and this is where they win, eg, when doing a Monte-Carlo calculation, you don't need to worry about how predictable but rather just the quality of the distribution.
Quite often when tested prng's will appear better than some rng's as these are hard to make. Several approaches are used to get them good enough, and typically these days they are very, very good. Tests like
Diehard tests can be used to test how well a rng is working.
Shuffling a real deck of cards is never likely to be as good as either of the above approaches although again a good shuffle will usually be good enough.
https://www.math.hmc.edu/funfacts/ff...0002.4-6.shtml