h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi, I'm back.

I haven't looked at the entry for a long time, because clearly nothing was happening with it. My fellow researcher, with whom I have had many spirited (and heated) discussions was going back to lurking (with probability one as I remember), and for good reason too, since everything that was to be said, was said. After that, I logged in every week or so, but when nothing happened, my enthusiasm may have lagged somewhat

I was willing to rewrite the article completely if the editors thought it was too risky to leave the "other" material in, but I didn't get any feedback whatsoever. A complete rewrite takes lots of time, and I wasn't willing to make this investment without a signal from someone that they are at all interested in an article like this. I'm still willing to do rewrite the article from scratch. But be prepared for another heated discussion with my fellow researchers, because this is obviously a disputed topic.

I am also still unrepentant about the way the article is currently written. If that bothers you, please go ahead and put the article into the flea market, but if you do, please remove my name from it.

Fun,

Sten

Hi Gnomon,

the article is really about properties of infinite sequences, not about the existence of algorithms that could generate these sequences. It is also not a practical, "how-to"-type article to check whether a sequence is random. It answers an abstract philosophical question and does not aim for applicability. If you can point out to me what made you believe that it is about algorithms, I'll happily rewrite that section. Perhaps I am going to rewrite the article from scratch anyway.

I agree that the typographics is a problem. All I can say in my defense is that all the symbols are standard HTML 4.01 entities (as per http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html , which is three years old already) and render perfectly in Mozilla. I didn't find any suggestions on which entities to avoid.

The text is heavy on mathematics and formulas, and the only clean way to avoid typographical problams would be to rewrite it without the formulas, and that would take some time. In fact, it would probably be a different article altogether, I suppose

Let's see what the guides/editors say. Perhaps I'll rewrite the article from scratch, without the symbols.

Fun,

Sten

Hi Guides, hi OldHairy (if you're still monitoring this thread), hi all.

Over the weekend, I have thought over the subject a bit more, and I believe that it is possible to write an article about random numbers that accomplishes the heroic feat of being

(a) not overly technical (i.e., can do without many formulas, even though it might need one every now and then),

(b) accurate (i.e., not artificially dumbed down to please an imaginary audience),

(c) free of plagiatory concerns with respect to Knuth's writings (I'll still agree with him on his main conclusion regarding uniform distribution with respect to computable subsequences, though),

(d) still able to answer the question that this article has set out to answer (i.e., the purely philosophical question of the nature of random sequences), and

(e) able to incorporate at least some of OldHairy's criticism (that I now believe comes from a massive misunderstanding on both sides).

The question is: now that I've decided to rewrite the article anyway, what am I to do with this one? Pull it from peer review? Leave it in? Delete it altogether (if that is at all possible)?

What's your advice?

Fun,

Sten

It's probably best in that case to remove this from Peer Review. This conversation will become attached to the bottom of the entry. Then rewrite this entry and resubmit it. That way, any of the concerns raised in this conversation will not be lost, but will not become a central part of the new Peer Review conversation.

I have now pulled this article from peer review. The new article will take some time, but if you stay subscribed to this conversation, you'll probably see whenever I have changed anything.

Fun,

Sten

Hi Old Hairy,

good to see you're still there.

Fun,

Sten