Quantum Randomizer
One of the interesting effects of physicalization would naturally be the further entanglement of algorithmic machines and cosmic phenomena, whether that be relative, quantic, membranic, or whatever else might come down the theoretical pike. Of course computers are already heavily entangled with various physical properties; it’s what makes them work. But to directly entangle an abstract algorithmic process to a cosmic phenomenon, now that’s cool.
Slashdot has just linked to the Quantum Random Bit Generation Service which will generate random numbers for you over the internet using hardware that « relies on intrinsic randomness of the quantum physical process of photonic emission in semiconductors and subsequent detection by photoelectric effect ». In other words, these are kick-ass random numbers that count up to 11.
So far there is a C++ library, a command-line tool (both will compile under g++), and some other systems/protocols that I don’t really know or work with. It also looks like some web interfaces are in development as well.
A few years back, the guys at SGI created a random number generator based on images from a webcam shooting an array of lava lamps. It was cumbersome and a little silly (the lava lamps had to be run on timers to prevent overheating), but it truly generated random numbers.
Anyhow, that lavarand has been replaced by a new lavarnd that is much simpler and can be built by anyone. It basically consists of a webcam CCD placed in a dark enclosure. The noise from the chip is sampled and run through various algorithms to arrive at a random number.
Comment by oscar — 20 July, 2007 @ 04:21 am
[...] The hilarious idea then becomes number generation via biological phenomena, similar to what I’ve spoken about in the past (cf. Quantum Randomizer, Snowy Tree Cricket, etc). This is actually already a reality in the LOEIL laboratory where we’re working: Jean-Pierre Mandon hacked a Linksys router into a Linux-server that sends the Mormyr rhythms to us over UDP. Then Guillaume Stagnaro used the Hypermedia UDP Library Stéphane Cousot and I built last year to grab these UDP feeds through Processing and by the end of the first day we had this ridiculous little sketch (cf. Happy Code Farm) animating a silly little fish using the data feed. The idea is to make this a permanent feed (data and audio) which could then be fed into the Locus Sonus streams. So basically we’ve built something equivalent to what I suggested was possible a few months back concerning the Snowy Tree Cricket. [...]
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