A team that included researchers at a US bank says it has created a protocol that can generate certified truly random numbers, opening the possibility that current generation quantum computers can be ...

You indirectly use random numbers online every day—to establish secure connections, to encrypt data, perhaps even to satisfy your gambling problem. But their ubiquity belies the fact that they’re ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Think of a random number between one and ten. Most likely, you chose seven—so exactly how random was your choice? Turns out that generating a truly random number is more difficult than you might think ...

Randomness is incredibly useful. People often draw straws, throw dice or flip coins to make fair choices. Random numbers can enable auditors to make completely unbiased selections. Randomness is also ...

Do you feel nervous when you make a credit-card transaction using your mobile phone? Your worries could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a low-cost device that could bring powerful cryptography ...

Your job is to create a random number generator. Your device starts with a speaker and a membrane. On this membrane will sit a handful of small, marble-size copper balls. An audio source feeds the ...