A the very dawn of electronic computing machinery, 1948, the Rand Corporation built an electronic machine with which to generate the contents of a book, titledgOne Million Random Digits and 100,000 Normal Deviates. The book is a large mathematical table, rigorously proven, perversely or hilariously, to contain absolutely no information -- an anti-table. Instructions for its use read like a card trick. It contains random digits from an anti-oracle, an electronic device that produced noise. Rand's machine was a difficult challenge for the time, but the "high quality" random numbers were sorely needed for theoretical work on nuclear bombs, amongst other things.
This machine is centered around a rigorous recreation of the Rand noise source, a type 6D4 gas-filled thyratron electron tube, in a crossed magnetic field. As far as I can tell, the underlying phenomenon, the chaotic motion of electrons within the tube, was first exploited by Cobine and Curry, 1946, with practical ramifications of electrons in a magnetic field documented back to the beginning of the 20th century. How or why Cobine and Curry came upon this phenomenon and applied it to noise generation remains unknown to me after a few months of research. I am fairly certain that the above paper is the first publication of this as a usable source of noise, as nearly all applications date from after it's publication.
In 1948 the electronic state of the art was such that it was an engineering feat to eek reliable non-sense from the thing; [NEED REF TO RAND RESEARCHER JOKE.] Things have changed such that it is now feasible in a (demented) artist's workshop.
This device is part of the Rocks and Code installation, though it stands on its own as well.
Where my Atomic Number Generator used the natural decay of uranium ore from Grants, New Mexico for it's own particular end, the Gas Tube Number Generator explores messier human ends.
This new machine requires human intervention to "herd" the electrons into true randomness by waving of hands over the device. Randomness is indicated on a phosphor display on the machine as well as subtle audible quality. Are there degrees of quality in noise?
One measure of randomness is the distribution of digits produced; at base this machine uses binary numbers, so there are one two digits: zero and one. If over a statistically significant period of time the same number of 1's and 0's are produced, one can assume the numbers are "random".
, and the Rocks and Code installation it was designed for, directly reference that event; what was done, why, and what it means today. It's a starting point for me to look at some fundamental limits of knowledge, amongst other things that will unfold later.
In 2009-2010 I completed a machine that emulated the algorithms of the original Rand machine, beginning with the sketchy information on the tables' production outlined in the book. That beginning led to some research on the Rand project which I laid out in reasonable detail in my MFA thesis, also called Rocks and Code.
(In 2011 continuing research and thought has taken the larger project -- Rocks and Code -- further along a divergent path; my Gas Tube Noise Generator begins with Rand's actual 1948 core electronic design and deals with some fundamental exploration of scientific objectivity and human subjectivity (or is that fallibility).)
The Atomic Number Generator has it's own page.
I am now developing a noise source using what I am fairly certain was Rand's noise source -- a 6D4 argon gas thyratron. In my thesis research I found what I think is the root development of the thyratron as noise source ( PDF article, Cobine, Curry 1947). A condensation of that design can be found in the Sylvania tube databook.
My noise source will emulate that, but will have... extended features, mainly outside human influence. More on this as it develops (don't hold your breath).
The random behaviors contained in uranium rock has it's own set of cultural side effects, but so does the gas thyratron, in it's own way. Here, contained within a tiny volume, between metal electrodes inside a glass envelope containing rarefied argon gas, is a tiny plasma of electrons imbued with a fundamental meaning to western [scientific] culture: an oracle of absolute unpredictability.
The new machine will start with a re-creation of the Rand noise source, a 6D4 miniature gas thyratron. It will end up ... extended in function, to include undue human influence over the electron plasma. At the moment it's just a test jig, sans magnets, but it produces the noise that thyratrons make as a side effect of normal operation. I did poke it manually with a magnet and the principle is clearly observable. I need to make the support electronics still, but proof-of-concept is there.
Magnet not mounted yet.
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There is an oscillation visible in the display, 350KHz - 500KHz, and I've determined that it's caused by inadvertent load capacitance in the leads and 'scope probe, both easily fixed or at least minimized. And since it is no longer 1948 I can fix remaining issues easily.
The intertwined developments of automatic computation, mathematical table and nuclear technology, and their effects on the very landscape we live in are largely hidden from view, and rarely are they considered together; how further from geological earth could mathematical tables to be?