Actual Random Numbers

A LARGE TEAM OF SCIENTISTS CLAIMS to have achieved “certified randomness” using a quantum computer.

- Caroline Delbert

In a classical computer, you can never make a truly random number. When you ask one to give you a random number, code behind the scenes is doing an approximation of randomness. But it's basically like shuffling a deck of cards until the results appear random to a user. The computer has no free will, so there's no way for it to “choose” anything without metrics or assigned values.

Quantum systems, however, involve an amount of unpredictability and entropy. As such, simply identifying certain qualities at certain times is randomized by nature.

In a 2016 literature review of quantum randomness projects, scientists explain the metric used for the desired level of randomness: