M.G. Kendall & B. Babington Smith: "Randomness and Random
Sampling Numbers." Journal of the Royal Statistical Society,
Vol. 101, No. 1 (1938), pp. 147-166.
M.G. Kendall & B. Babington Smith: "Second Paper on Random
Sampling Numbers." Supplement to the Journal of the Royal
Statistical Society, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1939), pp. 51-61.
[Semi-automatic electro-mechanical device. In a dark room, digits
on a rotating disc (250 rpm) move along a pointer. At arbitrary
moments, a neon light is momentarily switched on; the number next
to the pointer is written down.]
RAND Corporation: A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal
Deviates. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1955. [This project
(started in 1947) used an analog electronic random number generator,
which read the least significant digits from an arbitrarily gated
pulse counter. (The results showed statistically significant deviations
from randomness. Further randomization was needed to derive the
final tables.)]
Pawlak, Z. (1956). Flip-flop as a generator of
random binary digits. M.T.A.C., 10, 28-30
Ernie 1 (1957) used the least significant digits in the amplitude
measurement of a signal though a neon tube.
Sterzer, F. (1959). Random number generator using subharmonic oscillators.
Rev. of Scientific Instruments, 30, 241-243.
Miyatake, O., Inoue, H., Yoshizawa, Y. (1975). Generation of physical
random numbers. Mathematica Japonica., 20, 207-217.
Chasse, J. L. (1978). Sex distributions in the 556 eggs laid by
a single "Bombyx Mori" female: biological generation of binary random
numbers. (In French). Rivista di Stastistica Applicata, 11,
180-190.
Miyatake, O., et al. (1979). On the generation and properties of
physical random numbers. Mathematica Japonica, 24,
369-376.
Inoue, H., et al. (1983). Random numbers generated by a physical
device. Applied Statistics, 32, 115-120.
Don Davis, Ross Ihaka, and Philip Fenstermacher, ÒCryptographic
Randomness from Air Turbulence in Disk DrivesÓ, Proceedings of Crypto
94, Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science, No. 839,
1994.
ComScire: PCQNG,
1995-2006. [Uses CPU core clock jitter.]
John Walker: HotBits,
1996. [Uses radio-active decay.]
Bob Mende, Landon Curt Noll, Sanjev Sisodiya: lavarand,
1996. [Uses the digital image of a lava-lamp to produce seeds for
a pseudo-random number generator. It soon turned out, however, that
the presence of the lava-lamp was completely immaterial: the digital
camera produced just as much noise without any input.]
Mads Haahr: random.org,
1998. [Uses radio noise.]
Terry Ritter: Random
Noise Sources, 1999. [Zener diode noise; FM radio noise.]
Rolf Freitag's devices RW2,
RW3 and RW4 combine random numbers derived
from the noise of several Schmitt-triggers. (Patent
application: 1999)
Intel's random
number generator (included in the Pentium III and VIA microprocessors),
1999. [Based on thermal noise.]
Landon Curt Noll & Simon Cooper: LavaRnd,
2000. [CCD camera-chip digitizes luminance fluctuations in a sealed
can; uses some postprocessing to obtain statistical randomness]
T. Jennewein, U. Achleitner, G. Weihs, H. Weinfurter, A.Zeilinger: "A fast and compact quantum random number generator", Rev. Sci. Instr. 71 (2000), 1675 Ð 1680.
Ernie 4 (2001) uses thermal noise.
id Quantique: Quantis,
2001. [Uses the quantum-uncertainty in the transmission of single
photons through a semi-transparent medium, with postprocessing for "unbiasing".]
John S. Denker: High-Entropy
Randomness Generator, 2002. [Software which generates random
numbers on the basis of thermal noise on the computer's soundcard.]
A. Seznec & N. Sendrier: "HAVEGE: a user-level
software heuristic for generating empirically strong random numbers", ACM Transaction on Modeling and Computer Simulations (TOMACS),
13, 4 (October 2003). [Software which generates unpredictable
numbers on the basis of the changing states of the various hardware
components of the computer that it runs on (instruction and data
caches, translation buffers, L2 cache, branch prediction structures).]
M. Stipcevic: "Fast nondeterministic random bit generation
based on weakly correlated physical events." Rev. Sci. Instr.
75 (2004), 4442-4449. [QRBG 121 random number generator:
Uses time-intervals between semiconductor photon emissions.]
Several commercial products using Zener diode noise
are now (2007) on the market. For instance: the Orion
Random Number Generator, the HG400 by Random,
the SG100, SG200 and R300A by Protego.
Chance 