post random wikipedia articles

[Bob]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Karansebes

The Battle of Karánsebes (Romanian: Caransebeş,Turkish: Şebeş Savaşı) was an early episode in the Austro-Turkish War of 1787-1791. Different portions of an Austrian army which was scouting for forces of the Ottoman Empire fired on each other by mistake, in a self-inflicted disaster. The battle took place on the evening of 17 September 1788. Ottomans were victorious and captured the city.

The army of Austria, approximately 100,000 strong, was setting up camp around the town of Karánsebes (now Caransebeş, in modern Romania). The army's vanguard, a contingent of hussars, crossed the Timiş River nearby to scout for the presence of the Ottoman Turks. There was no sign of the Ottoman army, but the hussars did run into a group of Gypsies, who offered to sell schnapps to the war-weary soldiers. The cavalrymen bought the schnapps and started to drink.

Soon afterwards, some infantry crossed the river. When they saw the party going on, the infantry demanded alcohol for themselves. The hussars refused to give them any of the schnapps, and while still drunk, they set up makeshift fortifications around the barrels. A heated argument ensued, and one soldier fired a shot.

Immediately, the hussars and infantry engaged in combat with one another. During the conflict, some infantry began shouting "Turcii! Turcii!" (Romanian for "The Turks! The Turks!"). The hussars fled the scene, thinking that the Ottoman army’s attack was imminent. Most of the infantry also ran away; the army comprised Italians from Lombardy, Slavs from the Balkans, and Austrians, plus other minorities, many of whom could not understand each other. While it is not clear which one of these groups did so, they gave the false warning without telling the others, who promptly fled. The situation was made worse when officers, in an attempt to restore order, shouted "Halt! Halt!" which was misheard by soldiers with no knowledge of German as "Allah! Allah!".

As the cavalry ran through the camps, a corps commander reasoned that it was a cavalry charge by the Ottoman army, and ordered artillery fire. Meanwhile, the entire camp awoke to the sound of battle and, rather than waiting to see what the situation was, everyone fled. The troops fired at every shadow, thinking the Ottomans were everywhere; in reality they were shooting fellow Austrian soldiers. The incident escalated to the point where the whole army retreated from the imaginary enemy, and Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II was pushed off his horse into a small creek.

Two days later, the Ottoman army arrived. They discovered 10,000 dead and wounded soldiers.

[Echewta]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharana_Pratap_Sagar

Maharana Pratap Sagar (Devanagari: महाराणा प्रताप सागर), also known as Pong Dam Reservoir or Pong Dam Lake was created in 1975 building the highest earthfill dam in India on the Beas River in the wetland zone of the Siwalik Hills of the Kangra district of the state of Himachal Pradesh, in India. Named in the honour of the patriot Maharana Pratap (1572 –1597 C.E.), the reservoir or the lake is a well known wildlife sanctuary and one of the 25 wetland sites declared in India by the Ramsar Convention.[1][2]

[Randetica]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Board_of_Trade_Building


Chicago Board of Trade Building




The Chicago Board of Trade Building is a skyscraper located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. It stands at 141 W. Jackson Boulevard at the foot of the LaSalle Street canyon, in the Loop community area in Cook County. Built in 1930 and first designated a Chicago Landmark on May 4, 1977,[2] the building was listed as a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1978.[3][4] It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 16, 1978. Originally built for the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), it is now the primary trading venue for the CME Group, formed in 2007 by the merger of the CBOT and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.[5]

The 141 W. Jackson address hosted the former tallest building in Chicago designed by William W. Boyington before the current Holabird & Root structure, which held the same title for over 35 years[6] until being surpassed in 1965 by the Richard J. Daley Center. The current structure is known for its art deco architecture, sculptures and large-scale stone carving, as well as large trading floors. A three-story art deco statue of Ceres, goddess of agriculture (particularly grain), caps the building. The building is a popular sightseeing attraction and location for shooting movies, and its owners and management have won awards for efforts to preserve the building and for office management.
Contents
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[edit] Early history
[edit] Early locations

On April 3, 1848, the Board of Trade opened for business at 101 South Water Street. When 122 members were added in 1856, it was moved to the corner of South Water and LaSalle Streets. After another temporary relocation west on South Water Street in 1860, the first permanent home was established within the Chamber of Commerce Building on the corner of LaSalle and Washington Streets in 1865. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed this building. The exchange temporarily reopened two weeks after the fire in a 90 ft × 90 ft (27 m × 27 m) wooden building known as "the Wigwam" at the intersection of Washington and Market Streets,[7] before reclaiming its home in a new building constructed at the Chamber of Commerce site one year later.
[edit] Permanent home

In 1882, construction began of the CBOT's new home, which opened at the current location on May 1, 1885. It was designed by William W. Boyington, known previously for his work on the Chicago Water Tower. Built from structural steel and Maine granite, with a rear of enameled brick, it was 10 stories tall and featured a tower 320 ft (98 m) tall containing a large clock and 4,500 pounds (2,000 kg; 320 st) bell, topped by a 9 ft × 8 ft (2.7 m × 2.4 m) copper weather vane in the shape of a ship. Construction cost $1.8 million. With four elevators and a great hall 80 ft (24 m) high decorated by a stained-glass skylight and ornate stone balusters,[8] it was the first commercial building in Chicago to have electric lighting.[9] It was also the first building in the city to exceed 300 ft (91 m) in height and at the time was the tallest building in Chicago.
Old Chicago Board of Trade Building
Exterior, 1928
Large room, with flags and banners for Lincoln's 100th birthday, 1909
Entrance with U.S.A. flag and a horse drawn wagon in street, 1909
Crowd gathered in a room in the Board of Trade, 1909

The building attracted tourists and visitors. Viewing galleries were opened to the public for the first time in honor of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.[7] In 1895, the clock tower was removed and the "tallest building in Chicago" record was then held by the 302 ft (92 m) tall Masonic Temple Building.[10] Built on caissons surrounded by muck, the trading house was rendered structurally unsound in the 1920s when construction began across the street on the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. The 1885 building was subsequently demolished in 1929,[11] and the exchange temporarily moved to Van Buren and Clark while a new building was constructed at the LaSalle and Jackson site.
Night view of the top of The Chicago Board of Trade with the statue of Ceres clearly visible
[edit] Building details
[edit] Architecture

In 1925, the Chicago Board of Trade commissioned Holabird & Root to design the current building. The general contractors Hegeman & Harris built it for $11.3 million, although the reported twenty-year mortgage value was $12 million.[12][13] Clad in gray Indiana limestone, topped with a copper pyramid roof, and standing on a site running 174 ft (53 m) east – west on Jackson Boulevard and 240 ft (73 m) north – south on LaSalle Street, the 605 ft (184 m) tall art deco-styled building opened on June 9, 1930. It serves as the southern border for the skyscrapers hugging LaSalle Street and is taller than surrounding structures for several blocks. The Chicago Board of Trade has operated continuously on its twelfth floor since the 1930 opening, dedicating 19,000 square feet (1,765 m²) to what was then the world's largest trading floor.[14] The advent of steel frame structural systems allowed completely vertical construction; but as with many skyscrapers of the era, the exterior was designed with multiple setbacks at increasing heights, which served to allow additional light into the ever-deepening concrete valleys in urban cores. At night, the setbacks are upwardly lit by floodlights, further emphasizing the structure's vertical elements. The night illumination design was a common contemporary Chicago architectural theme, seen also in the Wrigley, Jewelers, Palmolive and LaSalle-Wacker buildings and Tribune Tower.[15] Interior decoration includes polished surfaces throughout, the use of black and white marble, prominent vertical hallway trim, and an open three-story lobby which at the time of opening housed the world's largest light fixture. Though One LaSalle Street had five more floors, the CBOT building was the first in Chicago to exceed a height of 600 ft (180 m). After surpassing the Chicago Temple Building, it was the tallest in Chicago until the Daley Center was completed in 1965. Known for its work on the Brooklyn Bridge, the family-operated factory of John A. Roebling supplied all of the cables used in the building's 23 Otis elevators.[16][17] Beneath the main trading floor over 2,700 miles (4,300 km) of telephone and telegraph wires were once hidden. No less than 150,000 miles (240,000 km) of wires (considered possibly the most direct long-distance wire from any building) once ran from the room.[18] Although the building was commissioned for the Chicago Board of Trade, its first tenant was the Quaker Oats Company, which moved in on May 1, 1930.[19]
[edit] Artwork

Statue of Industry

Statue of Agriculture

Sculptural work by Alvin Meyer, the one time leader of Holabird & Root's sculpture department, is prominent on the building's façade, and represents the trading activities within. On each side of the 13 ft (4.0 m) diameter clock facing LaSalle Street are hooded figures, an Egyptian holding grain and a Native American holding corn.[20][21][22] Similar figures are repeated at the uppermost corners of the central tower, just below the sloping roof. The additional 35 ft (11 m) Industry and Agriculture relief sculptures are considered part of a four-piece set.[23] About 30 ft (9.1 m) above street level, representations of bulls protrude directly from the limestone cladding on the building's north side and to a lesser degree on the east side, a reference to a bull market.

The central structure is capped by a 6,500 pound, 31 ft (9.4 m) tall aluminum statue of the Roman goddess of grain, Ceres, holding a sheaf of wheat in the left hand and a bag of corn in the right hand, as a nod to the exchange's heritage as a commodities market. This statue was assembled from 40 pieces.[24][25] As it is near the forty-five story point, sculptor John H. Storrs believed that no other building would be tall enough for the inhabitants to clearly see the statue's face, and therefore it was left blank.

Commissioned in 1930 but removed from the agricultural trading room in 1973 and stored until 1982, John W. Norton's three-story mural of Ceres shown bare-breasted in a field of grain underwent extensive restoration in Spring Grove, Illinois by Louis Pomerantz before being displayed in the atrium of the 1980s addition.[26][27]
[edit] Trading floor
Trading floor at the Chicago Board of Trade.

According to the June 16, 1930, Time, visitors carrying ripened wheat heads stared in curiosity at the six-story tall trading room directly above the lobby and behind the large windows below the clock facing LaSalle Street. At the center of the room, Time reported on the items being traded in "pits" organized based on commodities type with pits names such as the corn pit, soybean pit or wheat pit. The individual pits are raised octagonal structures where open outcry trading occurs. Steps up the outside of each octagon provide an amphitheater atmosphere, and enable a large number of traders to see each other and communicate during trading hours. With early versions dating back to 1870, this type of trading pit was patented in 1878.[7]

The trading area is surrounded by desks allowing workers to support transactions. In the early days, the desks served as a relay point between the pits and those wishing to buy or sell. When trade orders and information began to be communicated by telegraph, Morse code operators were employed, later replaced by phone operators. In the late 20th century, electric display boards lined the walls of the trading hall and the advent of electronic trading resulted in computers being placed on desktops.

Subsequent additions to the Board of Trade Building moved the agricultural and financial trading floors out of the original trading room and into new spaces in the additions to the building's rear in the 1980s. In 2004 the historic 1930 trading floor, already substantially altered (and unused for more than two years), was demolished and its pits filled with concrete. It was renovated in a modern style and now is leased to a privately owned options trading firm.[28]
[edit] Expansion
Chicago Board of Trade logo

In 1980, the owners added a 275 ft (84 m) 23-story expansion to the south side of the building.[29] It was topped by an octagonal ornament shaped similarly to the terraced trading pits and was designed in a postmodern style by Helmut Jahn. Colored black and silver, with a sunlit atrium on the 12th floor facing the south wall of the older structure, the annex provided a four-story granite lined agricultural trading floor, then the world's largest at 32,000 square feet (2,970 m2).[7] Even as the Sydney Futures Exchange and other markets were ceasing outcry trading, Mayor Richard M. Daley led the groundbreaking on January 17, 1995, for additional expansion into a five-story building to the east designed by architects Fujikawa Johnson and structural engineers TT-CBM. When opened in 1997, the $175 million structure would add 60,000 square feet (5,570 m2) of trading space and for a period again would house the world's largest trading floor.[7][14][30] It was nicknamed the "Arboretum" by some in reference to expansion supporter CBOT Chairman Patrick H. Arbor.[14] The expansion included price boards 600 feet (183 m) long and supported 12,000 computers, 6,000 voice devices, and 2,000 video devices requiring 27,000 miles (43,500 km) of cable.[31] Collectively, the trading floors now encompass approximately 115,150 square feet (10,700 m2).[32] The logo of the CBOT represents a trading pit, and appears prominently on stonework facing Clark Street and on street-level barriers at the service entrance on Van Buren Street. The addition has a twelve-story atrium and melds historical and contemporary design with art deco references such as setbacks, central tower, symmetrical projecting wings, pyramidal roof and abstract cascade and scallop lobby design.[33] Between the original and new buildings, where there was formerly a street, a wide street-level walkway connects the plaza on LaSalle Street to Van Buren Street in what would ordinarily be the building's first floor. Passing over the Van Buren Street elevated tracks, a green glass-enclosed steel-frame bridge connects the lower southwest corner of the 23 story addition to the Chicago Board Options Exchange (although this bridge was closed to pedestrian traffic in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks for security reasons).
[edit] Renovation
Lobby mailbox at the Chicago Board of Trade building.

In 2005, the building experienced an extensive $20 million renovation directed by Chicago architect Gunny Harboe, whose restoration work included Loop landmarks the Rookery Building and Reliance Building. The project included restoration of the main lobby to emphasize the design features of the art deco era, elevator modernization, façade renovation and cleaning, and the continued renovation of upper floor corridors and hallways.[34][35] Though impractically small for modern use, mailboxes in the lobby were restored to their original condition to follow the theme of vertical lines found throughout the complex.[36] An improved electrical infrastructure, with ten main feeds from seven different Commonwealth Edison electrical substations, was added in addition to redundant cooling systems and upgraded telecommunications capabilities.

When the old CBOT building was demolished in 1929, two 4.5 short tons (4.0 long tons; 4.1 t) 12 ft (3.7 m) tall gray granite statues of classically styled goddesses (pictured above) were moved from the second floor ledge above the main entrance into the gardens of the 500 acre (2 km²) estate of Arthur W. Cutten, a wheat and cotton speculator who went bankrupt during the Great Depression. One goddess represents agriculture and is shown standing with wheat and leaning on a cornucopia. The other represents industry and appears with the bow of a ship and an anvil.

The statues were found in 1978 near Glen Ellyn, Illinois by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, on land acquired from Cutten's estate. After being displayed in a parking lot at Danada Forest Preserve for several years, both were returned to the CBOT building's plaza and rededicated on June 9, 2005.[11][37]
[edit] Later history
[edit] Surroundings
Chicago Board of Trade from the Sears Tower.

The LaSalle Street canyon is home to other historic buildings including the Rookery Building, a National Historic Landmark considered to be the oldest standing high-rise. A 1907 renovation included a lobby remodeled by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Prairie School style.[38] The name rookery comes from the previous building on the property which became home to many birds, especially pigeons. The nearby Reliance Building was the first skyscraper to have large plate glass windows comprise the majority of its surface area, and One North LaSalle was for some time one of Chicago's tallest buildings. Both the Reliance Building and One North LaSalle are on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1853, the governments of Chicago and Cook County have shared three different buildings at the north end of the canyon. The current Chicago City Hall, built in a Classical Revival style, was designed to symbolize the strength, dignity, and vigor of the government.[39] Completed in 2001, an award winning green roof was incorporated into the structure.[40] All of the structures are designated as Chicago Landmarks.

Other nearby buildings of note include the Continental Commercial National Bank, now called 208 South LaSalle Street, which broke records in 1911 as the city’s most expensive development, with a cost exceeding $10 million. The Rand-McNally Building that had served as the headquarters of the World’s Columbian Exposition was demolished to accommodate the structure.[41] The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, at 230 South LaSalle Street, was built in a Greco-Roman style and contained the largest vaults in the world and one of the first building-wide wired communication systems.[42] Both the Federal Reserve Bank and 208 South LaSalle demonstrate the popularity of neoclassical architecture during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and were meant to project a sense of financial security.[41]

One mile (1.6 km) west of Lake Michigan and in the southwest corner of the Loop, the building is near two elevated stations of the Chicago 'L'. The Quincy station is one block to the west and the LaSalle/VanBuren station is between the CBOT and the Chicago Stock Exchange. Additionally, CTA Blue Line service is provided at the Jackson and LaSalle stations, each two blocks away. Union Station stands five blocks to the west on Jackson Boulevard, providing terminal service for Amtrak and select service for Metra. Additional Metra service is provided at the LaSalle Street Station, two blocks due south.
[edit] Tenants

The CME Group occupies 33 percent of available space, while financial and trading concerns occupy 54 percent of the three-building complex. In addition to Ceres Restaurant on the first floor of the lobby, other businesses provide banking, insurance, travel services, beauty services, and healthcare. Some business have been in the building for over 40 years,[36] and throughout its history, commodities speculators, such as "Prince of the Pit" Richard Dennis, have maintained offices in the building. In 2007, the U.S. Futures Exchange, a competitor of the CBOT formerly known as Eurex US, announced a move from the Sears Tower into the 14th floor of the CBOT building.[43]
[edit] Visitors

The CBOT building has been the site of a number of visits by dignitaries, including the Prince of Wales in October 1977. In 1991, George H. W. Bush became the first President of the United States to visit the Exchange, where he delivered a speech from the soybean pit regarding the importance of agriculture to the American economy.[44] A visit from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev followed on May 7, 1992. In 2006, former US President Jimmy Carter and wife Rosalyn toured the CBOT while campaigning for their son Jack's run for a U.S. Senate seat from Nevada.[45] During the 1996 Democratic National Convention, US Vice President Al Gore was hosted at the Exchange's Democratic Senatorial Campaign reception.[7] When US President George W. Bush toured the agricultural trading floor on January 6, 2006, he was hailed from the corn trading pit with "Hook 'em, Horns!", a reference to his adopted home state of Texas.[36][46] Interest groups such as the Chicago Architecture Foundation provide scheduled tours showcasing the architecture and selected portions of the trading operations.
[edit] Cultural depictions
[edit] Film and television

Trading operations have been used as scenes in movies such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off,[47][48] and the streetscape in the LaSalle Street canyon is used in the movies The Untouchables and Road to Perdition.[49][50] In the 2005 film Batman Begins the building serves as the headquarters of the fictional Wayne Enterprises,[51] but in the 2008 sequel, The Dark Knight, Wayne Enterprises was represented by the Richard J. Daley Center.[52]

While maintaining studios in the building for many years, WCIU-TV broadcast the Stock Market Observer, a daily seven-hour live business television news program that is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for the show telecast the most hours.[53] Additionally, the station broadcasts First Business with news of the Chicago Board of Trade. Former WVON-AM radio personality Don Cornelius began the popular dance show Soul Train in a cramped studio on the 43rd floor in 1970. When Cornelius moved the show to Los Angeles a year later, his assistant, Clinton Ghent took over the local show until it ended in 1976. Prior to Soul Train, shows filmed in the building were Kiddie A Go-Go, a dance show aimed at the pre-teen market which premiered in 1965 and Red Hot and Blues, a teen dance show hosted by local DJ Big Bill Hill which premiered in 1967.[54]
[edit] Graphic arts

Although depicted with the tower in a Rand McNally map from 1893, later lithographs of the first 141 Jackson Street location display a red-roofed building without a tower. Memorabilia of the current building is abundant, with postcards of panoramic scenes from LaSalle Street, the clock, and lighted upper decks having been produced for decades. In views from the Museum Campus, the building's crown is framed by the middle floors of the taller Sears Tower in the background. Photographer Andreas Gursky has used the location for still life prints such as 1997's Chicago Board of Trade, I and 1999's Chicago Board of Trade, II. A photograph of the exterior, from the Museum series by Thomas Struth, is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. An often-reproduced painting by Leslie Ragan for the New York Central Railroad depicts streamliner locomotives idling at LaSalle Street Station with the Board of Trade Building looming prominently in the background.[55]

At 1211 North LaSalle Street on the city's Near North Side, a 16-story apartment hotel built in 1929 and converted into an apartment building in 1981 was used by muralist Richard Haas for trompe-l'œil murals in homage to Chicago School architecture. One of the building's sides features the Chicago Board of Trade Building, intended as a reflection of the actual building two miles (3 km) south.[56][57][58]
[edit] Literature

The 1885 building and trading pits were prominently featured in The Pit, the second novel by Frank Norris in the Epic of Wheat trilogy.[59][60] Life on the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade is detailed in the nonfiction 2004 book Leg the Spread by Cari Lynn.[61]
[edit] Awards

* 1985: the 23-story addition won the Best Structure Award from the Structural Engineers Association of Illinois.[62]
* 2006: the building was awarded the Landmarks Illinois’ annual Real Estate and Building Industries Council award for its preservation efforts.[63]
* 2006: the Building Owners and Managers Association of Chicago presented the CBOT building with The Office Building of the Year award recognizing the high quality of office space and excellence in management of the building.[64]

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sounds interesting but not interesting enough for me to read it all

[Waus]

Every time I try I end up with a deliberate wikipedia article. :confused:

[b i o n i c]

Randomness

Randomness is a concept with somewhat disparate meanings in several fields. It also has common meanings which may have loose connections with some of those more definite meanings. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "random" thus:

Having no definite aim or purpose; not sent or guided in a particular direction; made, done, occurring, etc., without method or conscious choice; haphazard.

Also, in statistics, as:

Governed by or involving equal chances for each of the actual or hypothetical members of a population; (also) produced or obtained by such a process, and therefore unpredictable in detail.

Closely connected, therefore, with the concepts of chance, probability, and information entropy, randomness implies a lack of predictability. More formally, in statistics, a random process is a repeating process whose outcomes follow no describable deterministic pattern, but follow a probability distribution, such that the relative probability of the occurrence of each outcome can be approximated or calculated. For example, the rolling of a fair six-sided die in neutral conditions may be said to produce random results, because one cannot compute, before a roll, what number will show up. However, the probability of rolling any one of the six rollable numbers can be calculated, assuming that each is equally likely.

The term is often used in statistics to signify well-defined statistical properties, such as a lack of bias or correlation. Monte Carlo Methods, which rely on random input, are important techniques in science, as, for instance, in computational science.[1] Random selection is an official method to resolve tied elections in some jurisdictions[2] and is even an ancient method of divination, as in tarot, the I Ching, and bibliomancy. Its use in politics is very old, as office holders in Ancient Athens were chosen by lot, there being no voting.
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History

Humankind has been concerned with random physical processes from early history. Examples are divination (cleromancy), reading messages in casting lots), the use of allotment in the Athenian democracy, and the frequent references to the casting of lots found in the Old Testament.

Despite the existence of gambling for a long time, there was little inquiry into the subject. Though Gerolamo Cardano and Galileo wrote about games of chance, the first mathematical treatments were given by Blaise Pascal, Pierre de Fermat and Christiaan Huygens. The classical version of probability theory that they developed proceeds from the assumption that outcomes of random processes are equally likely; thus they were among the first to give a definition of randomness in statistical terms. The concept of statistical randomness was later developed into the concept of information entropy in information theory.

In the early 1960s, Gregory Chaitin, Andrey Kolmogorov and Ray Solomonoff introduced the notion of algorithmic randomness, in which the randomness of a sequence depends on whether it is possible to compress it.
Randomness in science

Many scientific fields are concerned with randomness:

* Algorithmic probability
* Chaos theory
* Cryptography
* Game theory
* Information theory
* Pattern recognition
* Probability theory
* Quantum mechanics
* Statistics
* Statistical mechanics

In the physical sciences

In the 19th century, scientists used the idea of random motions of molecules in the development of statistical mechanics in order to explain phenomena in thermodynamics and the properties of gases.

According to several standard interpretations of quantum mechanics, microscopic phenomena are objectively random[citation needed]. That is, in an experiment where all causally relevant parameters are controlled, there will still be some aspects of the outcome which vary randomly. An example of such an experiment is placing a single unstable atom in a controlled environment; it cannot be predicted how long it will take for the atom to decay; only the probability of decay within a given time can be calculated.[3] Thus, quantum mechanics does not specify the outcome of individual experiments but only the probabilities. Hidden variable theories are inconsistent with the view that nature contains irreducible randomness: such theories posit that in the processes that appear random, properties with a certain statistical distribution are somehow at work "behind the scenes" determining the outcome in each case.
In biology

The modern evolutionary synthesis ascribes the observed diversity of life to natural selection, in which some random genetic mutations are retained in the gene pool due to the non-random improved chance for survival and reproduction that those mutated genes confer on individuals who possess them.

The characteristics of an organism arise to some extent deterministically (e.g., under the influence of genes and the environment) and to some extent randomly. For example, the density of freckles that appear on a person's skin is controlled by genes and exposure to light; whereas the exact location of individual freckles seems to be random.[4]

Randomness is important if an animal is to behave in a way that is unpredictable to others. For instance, insects in flight tend to move about with random changes in direction, making it difficult for pursuing predators to predict their trajectories.
In mathematics
Acap.svg
This section may require copy-editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. You can assist by editing it now. (January 2009)

The mathematical theory of probability arose from attempts to formulate mathematical descriptions of chance events, originally in the context of gambling, but later in connection with situations of interest in physics. Statistics is used to infer the underlying probability distribution of a collection of empirical observations. For the purposes of simulation, it is necessary to have a large supply of random numbers or means to generate them on demand.

Algorithmic information theory studies, among other topics, what constitutes a random sequence. The central idea is that a string of bits is random if and only if it is shorter than any computer program that can produce that string (Kolmogorov randomness)—this means that random strings are those that cannot be compressed. Pioneers of this field include Andrey Kolmogorov and his student Per Martin-Löf, Ray Solomonoff, and Gregory Chaitin.

In mathematics, there must be an infinite expansion of information for randomness to exist. This can best be seen by using the binary number system. If one has a random sequence of numbers each of which consists of only three bits, then each number can have only eight possible values:

000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, 111

Therefore, as the random sequence progresses, it must recycle through the values it previously used. In order to increase the information space, another bit may be added to each possible number, giving 16 possible values from which to pick a random number. It could be said that the random four-bit number sequence is more random than the three-bit one. This suggests that in order to have true randomness, there must be an infinite expansion of the information space.

Randomness is said to occur in numbers such as log (2) and Pi. The decimal digits of Pi constitute an infinite sequence and "never repeat in a cyclical fashion"[5]. "Numbers like pi are also thought to be "normal," which means that their digits are random in a certain statistical sense."

Pi certainly seems to behave this way. In the first six billion decimal places of pi, each of the digits from 0 through 9 shows up about six hundred million times. Yet such results, conceivably accidental, do not prove normality even in base 10, much less normality in other number bases.[6]

It is impossible, with computer software, to generate truly random sequences that do not repeat. This is because, in order to ensure that there is no regular repetition of any sequence, the computer would have to store all the sequences that the program has already produced. These requirements would soon mean that there would be no more storage available, and more numbers could not be produced.
In information science

In information science, irrelevant or meaningless data is considered to be noise. Noise consists of a large number of transient disturbances with a statistically randomized time distribution.

In communication theory, randomness in a signal is called "noise" and is opposed to that component of its variation that is causally attributable to the source, the signal.
In finance

The random walk hypothesis considers that asset prices in an organized market evolve at random.

Other so-called random factors intervene in trends and patterns to do with supply-and-demand distributions. As well as this, the random factor of the environment itself results in fluctuations in stock and broker markets.
Randomness versus unpredictability

Randomness, as opposed to unpredictability, is held to be an objective property - determinists believe it is an objective fact that randomness does not in fact exist. Also, what appears random to one observer may not appear random to another. Consider two observers of a sequence of bits, when only one of whom has the cryptographic key needed to turn the sequence of bits into a readable message. For that observer the message is not random, but it is unpredictable for the other.

One of the intriguing aspects of random processes is that it is hard to know whether a process is truly random. An observer may suspect that there is some "key" that unlocks the message. This is one of the foundations of superstition, and is also a motivation for discovery in science and mathematics.

Under the cosmological hypothesis of determinism, there is no randomness in the universe, only unpredictability, since there is only one possible outcome to all events in the universe. A follower of the narrow frequency interpretation of probability could assert that no event can be said to have probability, since there is only one universal outcome. On the other hand, under the rival Bayesian interpretation of probability there is no objection to the use of probabilities in order to represent a lack of complete knowledge of the outcomes.

Some mathematically defined sequences, such as the decimals of pi mentioned above, exhibit some of the same characteristics as random sequences, but because they are generated by a describable mechanism, they are called pseudorandom. To an observer who does not know the mechanism, a pseudorandom sequence is unpredictable.

Chaotic systems are unpredictable in practice due to their extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. Whether or not they are unpredictable in terms of computability theory is a subject of current research. At least in some disciplines of computability theory, the notion of randomness is identified with computational unpredictability.

Individual events that are random may still be precisely described en masse, usually in terms of probability or expected value. For instance, quantum mechanics allows a very precise calculation of the half-lives of atoms even though the process of atomic decay is random. More simply, although a single toss of a fair coin cannot be predicted, its general behavior can be described by saying that if a large number of tosses are made, roughly half of them will show up heads. Ohm's law and the kinetic theory of gases are non-random macroscopic phenomena that are assumed to be random at the microscopic level.
Randomness and religion

Some theologians have attempted to resolve the apparent contradiction between an omniscient deity, or a first cause, and free will using randomness. Discordians have a strong belief in randomness and unpredictability. Buddhist philosophy states that any event is the result of previous events (karma), and as such, there is no such thing as a random event or a first event.

Martin Luther, the forefather of Protestantism, believed that there was nothing random based on his understanding of the Bible. As an outcome of his understanding of randomness, he strongly felt that free will was limited to low-level decision making by humans. Therefore, when someone sins against another, decision making is only limited to how one responds, preferably through forgiveness and loving actions. He believed, based on Biblical scripture, that humans cannot will themselves faith, salvation, sanctification, or other gifts from God. Additionally, the best people could do, according to his understanding, was not sin, but they fall short, and free will cannot achieve this objective. Thus, in his view, absolute free will and unbounded randomness are severely limited to the point that behaviors may even be patterned or ordered and not random. This is a point emphasized by the field of behavioral psychology.

These notions and more in Christianity often lend to a highly deterministic worldview and that the concept of random events is not possible. Especially, if purpose is part of this universe, then randomness, by definition, is not possible. This is also one of the rationales for religious opposition to evolution, where, according to theory, (non-random) selection is applied to the results of random genetic variation.

Donald Knuth, a Stanford computer scientist and Christian commentator, remarks that he finds pseudorandom numbers useful and applies them with purpose. He then extends this thought to God who may use randomness with purpose to allow free will to certain degrees. Knuth believes that God is interested in people's decisions and limited free will allows a certain degree of decision making. Knuth, based on his understanding of quantum computing and entanglement, comments that God exerts dynamic control over the world without violating any laws of physics, suggesting that what appears to be random to humans may not, in fact, be so random.[7]

C. S. Lewis, a 20th-century Christian philosopher, discussed free will at length. On the matter of human will, Lewis wrote: "God willed the free will of men and angels in spite of His knowledge that it could lead in some cases to sin and thence to suffering: i.e., He thought freedom worth creating even at that price." In his radio broadcast, Lewis indicated that God "gave [humans] free will. He gave them free will because a world of mere automata could never love..."

In some contexts, procedures that are commonly perceived as randomizers—drawing lots or the like —are used for divination, e.g., to reveal the will of the gods; see e.g. Cleromancy.
Applications and use of randomness
Main article: Applications of randomness

In most of its mathematical, political, social and religious use, randomness is used for its innate "fairness" and lack of bias.

Political: Greek Democracy was based on the concept of isonomia (equality of political rights) and used complex allotment machines to ensure that the positions on the ruling committees that ran Athens were fairly allocated. Allotment is now restricted to selecting jurors in Anglo-Saxon legal systems and in situations where "fairness" is approximated by randomization, such as selecting jurors and military draft lotteries.

Social: Random numbers were first investigated in the context of gambling, and many randomizing devices, such as dice, shuffling playing cards, and roulette wheels, were first developed for use in gambling. The ability to produce random numbers fairly is vital to electronic gambling, and, as such, the methods used to create them are usually regulated by government Gaming Control Boards. Throughout history, randomness has been used for games of chance and to select out individuals for an unwanted task in a fair way (see drawing straws).

Mathematical: Random numbers are also used where their use is mathematically important, such as sampling for opinion polls and for statistical sampling in quality control systems. Computational solutions for some types of problems use random numbers extensively, such as in the Monte Carlo method and in genetic algorithms.

Medicine: Random allocation of a clinical intervention is used to reduce bias in controlled trials (e.g., randomized controlled trials).

Religious: Although not intended to be random, various forms of divination such as cleromancy see what appears to be a random event as a means for a divine being to communicate their will. (See also Free will and Determinism).
Generating randomness
Main article: Random number generation
The ball in a roulette can be used as a source of apparent randomness, because its behavior is very sensitive to the initial conditions.

It is generally accepted that there exist three mechanisms responsible for (apparently) random behavior in systems:

1. Randomness coming from the environment (for example, Brownian motion, but also hardware random number generators)
2. Randomness coming from the initial conditions. This aspect is studied by chaos theory and is observed in systems whose behavior is very sensitive to small variations in initial conditions (such as pachinko machines, dice ...).
3. Randomness intrinsically generated by the system. This is also called pseudorandomness and is the kind used in pseudo-random number generators. There are many algorithms (based on arithmetics or cellular automaton) to generate pseudorandom numbers. The behavior of the system can be determined by knowing the seed state and the algorithm used. These methods are quicker than getting "true" randomness from the environment.

The many applications of randomness have led to many different methods for generating random data. These methods may vary as to how unpredictable or statistically random they are, and how quickly they can generate random numbers.

Before the advent of computational random number generators, generating large amounts of sufficiently random numbers (important in statistics) required a lot of work. Results would sometimes be collected and distributed as random number tables.
Randomness measures and tests

There are many practical measures of randomness for a binary sequence. These include measures based on frequency, discrete transforms, and complexity, or a mixture of these. These include tests by Kak, Phillips, Yuen, Hopkins, Beth and Dai, Mund, and Marsaglia and Zaman.[8]
Links related to generating randomness

* Hardware random number generator
* Entropy (computing)
* Information entropy
* Probability theory
* Pseudorandomness
* Pseudorandom number generator
* Random number
* Random sequence
* Random variable
* Randomization
* Stochastic process
* White noise

Misconceptions/logical fallacies
Main article: Gambler's fallacy

Popular perceptions of randomness are frequently wrong, based on logical fallacies. The following is an attempt to identify the source of such fallacies and correct the logical errors.
A number is "due"

This argument is that "in a random selection of numbers, since all numbers will eventually appear, those that have not come up yet are 'due', and thus more likely to come up soon." This logic is only correct if applied to a system where numbers that come up are removed from the system, such as when playing cards are drawn and not returned to the deck. In this case, once a jack is removed from the deck, the next draw is less likely to be a jack and more likely to be some other card. However, if the jack is returned to the deck, and the deck is thoroughly reshuffled, a jack is as likely to be drawn as any other card. The same applies in any other process where objects are selected independently, and none are removed after each event, such as the roll of a die, a coin toss, or most lottery number selection schemes. Truly random processes such as these do not have memory, making it impossible for past outcomes to affect future outcomes.
A number is "cursed" or "blessed"
See also: Benford's law

In a random sequence of numbers, a number may be said to be cursed because it has come up less often in the past, and so it is thought that it will occur less often in the future. A number may be assumed to be blessed because it has occurred more often than others in the past, and so it is thought to be likely to come up more often in the future. This logic is valid only if the randomisation is biased, for example with a loaded die. If the die is fair, then previous rolls give no indication of future events.

In nature, events rarely occur with perfectly equal frequency. So observing outcomes to determine which events are likely to have a higher probability, makes sense. It is fallacious to apply this logic to systems which are designed so that all outcomes are equally likely, such as shuffled cards, dice and roulette wheels.
Books

* Randomness by Deborah J. Bennett. Harvard University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-674-10745-4.
* Random Measures, 4th ed. by Olav Kallenberg. Academic Press, New York, London; Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 1986. MR0854102.
* The Art of Computer Programming. Vol. 2: Seminumerical Algorithms, 3rd ed. by Donald E. Knuth. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997. ISBN 0-201-89684-2.
* Fooled by Randomness, 2nd ed. by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Thomson Texere, 2004. ISBN 1-58799-190-X.
* Exploring Randomness by Gregory Chaitin. Springer-Verlag London, 2001. ISBN 1-85233-417-7.
* Random by Kenneth Chan includes a "Random Scale" for grading the level of randomness.

See also
Search Wikiversity Wikiversity has learning materials about Random

* Aleatory
* Algorithmic information theory
* Algorithmic probability
* Entropy
* Frequency probability
* Allotment
* Complexity
* Chaitin's constant
* Chaos
* Probability interpretations
* Random number generator
* Randomness tests
* Stochastic

[MC Moot]

Bill Barilko

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Barilko

Shoots R
Height
Weight 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m)
180 lb (82 kg; 12 st 12 lb)
Pro clubs Hollywood Wolves
Toronto Maple Leafs
Nationality Canada
Born March 25, 1927(1927-03-25),
Timmins, Ontario
Died August 26, 1951 (aged 24),

Pro career 1945 – 1951
William "Bashin' Bill" Barilko (born March 25, 1927 in Timmins, Ontario – died August 26, 1951 near Cochrane, Ontario) was a Canadian ice hockey player of Ukrainian descent who played his entire National Hockey League career for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Professional Career

In February 1947, Barilko was called up to the Maple Leafs from the PCHL's Hollywood Wolves and played for Leafs until his death.[3] He was sweater #21 when he debuted for the Leafs. He changed to #19 for the 1948-49 and 1949-50 seasons. The #5 (which was retired by the Leafs) was only worn by Barilko for one season, 1950-51. During that span of five seasons, Barilko and the Toronto Maple Leafs were Stanley Cup champions on four occasions 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951.[4] The last goal he ever scored (in overtime against the Montreal Canadiens' Gerry McNeil in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final) on April 21, 1951, won the Leafs the Cup.[2]

Death

Four months later, on August 26, 1951, he joined his dentist Henry Hudson on a flight aboard Hudson's Fairchild 24 floatplane to Seal River, Quebec, for a fishing trip.[5] On the return trip, the single-engine plane disappeared and its passengers remained missing.[5] On June 7, 1962, helicopter pilot Ron Boyd discovered the wreckage of the plane about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Cochrane, Ontario[6][7] (about 35 miles off course). The cause of the crash was deemed to have been a combination of pilot inexperience, poor weather and overloaded cargo.[8] Notably, the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup that year, after not winning it at all during the eleven years that he was missing.[6][9][8][6] The Tragically Hip's song "Fifty Mission Cap", from their 1992 album Fully Completely, features Barilko's tragic story and the lack of another Leafs championship " until 1962, the year he was discovered."[7][5]

Honours

Barilko's #5 is one of only two numbers retired by the Maple Leafs (Ace Bailey's #6 is the other)

Barilko's story was published in the 1988 book Overtime, Overdue: The Bill Barilko Story, by John Melady, and the 2004 book Barilko — Without A Trace, by Kevin Shea.

[jackrock]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freight_Train_Riders_of_America

The Freight Train Riders of America (FTRA) is an American gang of homeless men who move about in railroad cars, particularly in the northwestern United States.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_illusions_in_aviation

Because human senses are adapted for use on the ground, navigating by sensory input alone during flight can be dangerous: sensory input does not always accurately reflect the movement of the aircraft, causing sensory illusions. These illusions can be extremely dangerous for pilots.