Mechanically Generated Random Numbers in High School (Journal Article)

***______{For Hard Copy, Please visit Library.}________***

Abstract: In a computer-assisted world, data security is one of the most important issues, which seems to be interesting for organizers of physics competitions, too. An International Young Physicists’ Tournament (IYPT) problem from 2016—Invent Yourself—has motivated our school project in generating random numbers mechanically and in testing their randomness. Chaotic phenomena and random behavior can be found in the high school curriculum of certain countries (e.g., Austria), while textbooks of some other countries present the topic as supplementary material. For most high school students, the IYPT problem presented in this paper may be challenging, although there are some methods teachers and their students can rely on. This paper contains a description of an easy, experimental apparatus in chaos that generates random numbers in a manner that is easy for pupils to understand.