In a computer-assisted world, data security is one of the most important issues, which seems to be interesting for organizers of physics competitions, too. An International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT) problem1 from 2016—Invent Yourself—has motivated our school project in generating random numbers mechanically and in testing their randomness. Chaotic phenomena and random behavior can be found in the high school curriculum2 of certain countries (e.g., Austria), while textbooks of some other countries3 present the topic as supplementary material. For most high school students, the IYPT problem presented in this paper may be challenging, although there are some methods teachers and their students can rely on. This paper contains a description of an easy, experimental apparatus in chaos that generates random numbers in a manner that is easy for pupils to understand. Our setup is simple and easy to reproduce in schools. It randomly generates a sequence of...
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October 2023
PAPERS|
October 01 2023
Mechanically Generated Random Numbers in High School
Mihály Hömöstrei;
Mihály Hömöstrei
1
Eötvös Loránd University
, Budapest, Hungary
, and Deutsche Schule Budapest
, Budapest, Hungary
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Balázs Norbert Nagy;
Balázs Norbert Nagy
2
Budapest University of Technology and Economics
, Budapest, Hungary
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Dorottya Schnider
Dorottya Schnider
a)
3
Fazekas Mihály Secondary School
, Budapest, Hungary
, and Eötvös Loránd University
, Budapest, Hungary
; [email protected]
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Phys. Teach. 61, 614–617 (2023)
Citation
Mihály Hömöstrei, Balázs Norbert Nagy, Dorottya Schnider; Mechanically Generated Random Numbers in High School. Phys. Teach. 1 October 2023; 61 (7): 614–617. https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0085630
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