number generator

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:20:49 -0300, Hendrik van Rooyen  
<mail at microcorp.co.za> escribió:

> Is it possible to devise a test that can distinguish between sets
> of:
>
> - five random numbers that add to 50, and
> - four random numbers and a fudge number that add to 50?
>
> My stats are way too small and rusty to attempt to answer
> the question, but it seems intuitively a very difficult thing.

You can't have two different sets with four equal numbers - it's not a  
very difficult thing, it's impossible to distinguish because they're  
identical!
Given 4 numbers in the set, the 5th is uniquely determined. By example:  
12, 3, 10, 18 *must* end with 7. The 5th number is not "random". Any  
randomness analysis should include only the first 4 numbers (or any other  
set of 4).
In other words, there are only 4 degrees of freedom. In the fence analogy,  
you only have to choose where to place 4 poles; the 5th is fixed at the  
end.

-- 
Gabriel Genellina