The following is an excerpt from a mathematician concerning randomness:
"Upon the first presentation of my discovery which we will refer to as "Random number
displacement"...or...RND, for brevity, the old belief, which is still the accepted rule of
random numbers by most students, was supposed to show that regardless of what
happened in the past (results), it would have no bearing on the future. In other words
...if a coin was flipped 10 times and heads came up 10 times, then the odds of heads
showing on the 11th toss were the same as the first toss. It was this accepted belief
which I know is wrong, which caused me to question the other accepted belief
regarding random numbers.
The above law is not correct since even chances are so seldom one sided as to
ten to one. If there is a 50/50 chance something will occur and after 10 occurences
only one thing has occured. the odds are not still 50/50! The odds climb continuallly
against the same occurence happening.
But the accepted law is correct if you start the first time each time, but not if you toss
the coin repeatedly. But since you do not do anything only once the accepted law is not
right. You do not only play one hand of blackjack in your whole life. Or make only
one bet on a horse or dog, or only bet once on keno or a football game.
To wager means....to bet in a continuous fashion on a certain game or games.
You never make one bet and then quit the rest of your life. It does not matter
that you make your bets days or weeks apart or from weekend to weekend.
or month to month. You bet continuously. To make more than one bet....is when
the accepted law cannot be applied.
Now consider this. If any game of chance which is played more than one time does
not follow the rule of odds, like it is supposed to when only one bet is made.....how can
subsequent results (bets) be also ruled by that one occurence rule? How can you say
the odds of tossing a coin and catching heads 10 times in a row is the same as tossing
that coin once and getting heads. You can't! Just try and see how hard it is to have
one side of a coin come up even three or four times in a row....but yet we are told
the odds are the same.
All this leads us to only one conclusion...what has happened has as much influence
on what will happen...and games of chance do not have series of events which are
unconnected to what occured before and after any individual event.
In other words a "random number" is not truly random unless there is no past
results to define the event. This would mean only the very first occurence is the
number or event truly "random"!
