Randomness
From Maze
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=== Introduction === | === Introduction === | ||
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| + | One important fact that may elude the reader has to do with the invention of computer languages such as BASIC. Early in its design, a computer language resembles the blueprint of an empty building. Like architects, its authors must choose elements which will be part of the architecture permanently and which ones will be left out. In a building, certain elements must be included: hallways, bathrooms and staircases. In a computer language, these requirements can be formalized as the "Turing complete" criteria: branching and comparison. With these mathematically minimal necessities, any computer program is possible, even if it is very tedious. The advantage of programming languages, like BASIC, is that they facilitate programming through higher-level combinations of those simpler elements. This is like adding elevators, escalators, porches and skylights to a building: they are not absolutely necessary to use the building, but they greatly facilitate it. Therefore, it is worth asking of BASIC "Why did it include a random number function? What is it facilitating?" This chapter explains random numbers, differentiating different types of randomness. Then, it looks at the historical inception of the RND function for generating random numbers and some of randomness's uses. | ||
Does carefully applied randomness help everything run smoothly? Does the extension of random methods into the home through home computing and its accompanying literacy campaign constitute a defeat of the unpredictable? How and why is randomness used in the arts? This chapter scrutinizes the meaning of randomness beginning with its entrance into our language, following its introduction into everyday language through the fields of science and art. Finally, it shows the inversion of randomness meaning from unknown into mundane. This demonstrates that the maze pattern which emerges from 10Print is not merely an artifact of its random process, but a confluence of the randomness with other structural elements, such as the terminal. | Does carefully applied randomness help everything run smoothly? Does the extension of random methods into the home through home computing and its accompanying literacy campaign constitute a defeat of the unpredictable? How and why is randomness used in the arts? This chapter scrutinizes the meaning of randomness beginning with its entrance into our language, following its introduction into everyday language through the fields of science and art. Finally, it shows the inversion of randomness meaning from unknown into mundane. This demonstrates that the maze pattern which emerges from 10Print is not merely an artifact of its random process, but a confluence of the randomness with other structural elements, such as the terminal. | ||
