Also according to that support page, 'adding randomize=1 .... will cause "r" to be determined from the system clock (which adds a further degree of randomness to the numbers generated)'. And further down it has a NOTE: Excel 5.0 defaults to the RANDOMIZE=1 setting. Previous version of Microsoft Excel defaulted to RANDOMIZE=0. So, unless you have evidence that the formula is being followed (which should be clear from any two successive generated numbers), I'd guess that the PNG isn't being used. --ms Michael Kleber wrote:
On Jun 10, 2004, at 3:37 PM, Simon Plouffe wrote:
I am conducting some tests with the built-in random number generator of Excel.
According to
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;86523
it iterates r -> fractional part of (9821 * r + 0.211327) starting with a seed of r=.5. That page claims that "This formula will provide up to 1 million different numbers," which doesn't seem to hold up to your only seeing 3037 distinct ones.
- It did pick up the number 1 , 2 times.
Hmm, so your sequence is not cyclic?! This is bizarre. Unless the "equals" function is somehow not very sensitive? If excel reports a=b, does it necessarily mean that a-b=0?
--Michael Kleber kleber@brandeis.edu
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