Quantum Random Number Generator, in PowerShell!
Recently I came across an article about a random number generator based on quantum effects in a vacuum. Scientists at The Australian National University have created the fastest random number generator based on this concept.
Sub-atomic particles appearing and disappearing measured by extremely sensitive light sensors are generating these random numbers. According to Quantum Theory these events are completely random and connect be predicted.
Because I thought the concept was quite interesting I decided to write a small PowerShell script, for PowerShell version 3. Using the new Invoke-Webrequest Cmdlet. The script grabs the content from the dedicated website and finds the block of 1024 hexadecimal characters.
Based on the parameters supplied to the script it can return either a hexadecimal number of 1 to 15 characters or a converted to a decimel integer. As a third option the script can also be leveraged to generate a seed to be used with the Get-Random Cmdlet, because a Quantum Seed is just so much better.
By all means check out the ANU Website as well, there are some guessing games as well, so you can try to beat the random generator.
This entry was posted in Microsoft, PowerShell and tagged Invoke-Webrequest, PowerShell, PowerShell v3, Quantum Theory, Random Number, Scripting on 2012-04-18 by Jaap Brasser.