Unsorting(randomizing) a sequence

[Jeremy Hylton]

>>>>> "TL" == Tom Loredo <loredo at spacenet.tn.cornell.edu> writes:

  TL> It's not a computer science article, and thus not completely
  TL> relevant to this thread, but if you want to learn more than
  TL> you'll ever need to know about the statistics of shuffling,
  TL> Persi Diaconis is the man.  A standard reference is:

  TL> Trailing the Dovetail Shuffle to Its Lair", by Dave Bayer &
  TL> Persi Diaconis, Annals App. Prob, Vol 2 # 2, May 1992, p 294.

  TL> This is the fellow who worked out the item reported in the
  TL> popular press a few years ago that it takes 7 shuffles to
  TL> adequately shuffle a deck of 52 cards.

What's more, Diaconis is reportedly able to execute the perfect
shuffle with ease.  He also spent some time in Doc. Edgerton's strobe
lab and taught himself how to flip a "fair" coin so that it always
comes up heads.

Jeremy