Determining the relative abundance of two different molecular species or the absolute number of molecules in a single sample is challenging. We describe an absolute counting method that can use ...

Researchers have developed a method for generating numbers guaranteed to be random, through the use of quantum mechanics. The experimental technique surpasses all previous methods for ensuring the ...

With an advance that one cryptography expert called a "masterpiece," University of Texas at Austin computer scientists have developed a new method for producing truly random numbers, a breakthrough ...

Lotteries, accidents and rolls of dice — the world around us is full of unpredictable events. Yet generating a truly random series of numbers for encryption has remained a surprisingly difficult task.

To simulate chance occurrences, a computer can’t literally toss a coin or roll a die. Instead, it relies on special numerical recipes for generating strings of shuffled digits that pass for random ...