Testimonials

I meant to email you a long time ago, but kept putting it off until the work was published. Anyway, I used Random.org data initially for my final year project in 2003/2004. It was research on sorting algorithms in the presence of caches and branch predictors. Back then the data was available for download in 10MB blocks, and there were 16 of them. So I uses all of them, 'cat'ed together, as the data to be sorted.

I extended this into a Tech Report in 2005, and a paper in 2006, which got published in the ACM Journal of Experimental Algorithmics (eventually, in June).

Having truly random data made me certain my results weren't due to my errors, and having so much of it made my sure it wasn't an anomaly. That was especially useful as a mere undergrad, when I wasn't really sure what I was doing.

Thanks a lot for Random.org, and for the data.

—Paul Biggar, Trinity College Dublin

For the experiment I'm conducting for my MA thesis (linguistics) I needed to create a randomised list. The experiment contains 36 times an order of three pictures, of which the participant needs to select one as correct. The order of these three pictures had to be one of the 6 possibilities for each of the 36 items (ABC, ACB etc), and I had to make three different versions. Fortunately for me I found the list randomiser on your website Random.org. I gave each possibility a number, entered all six numbers six times and clicked randomise. Within a few seconds, I had three different versions of sequences! This saved me quite some time!

I will of course refer to the randomiser correctly in MLA style in my thesis.

Thank you for providing this free opportunity online.

—Ingrid Souillé

Hello,

I have been using the random sequence generator for about a year to create slot machine simulations for neuroscience experiments. Thanks so much, your site is great!

—Paul Campion, National Institutes of Health, USA

I use Random.org to decide a sample population for individual studies. Last month when I went to generate the numbers it appeared the site was gone—but you're back! Thanks for this great free program.

—Sally B. Buttry, Quality and Safety Services, Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital, Illinois

I Googled onto your site to find a random number generator for my wife's PhD dissertation. She is doing a double blind type survey of medical residents. We used your tables to feed a MS Word macro that applies a random number (300 count) to each page of an 18-page survey. 300×18 is a big Word file. Then we printed the surveys as required for each school's survey requirements.

Your site is a great source and we appreciate your effort.

—Charles Lloyd

I used Random.org in 2004 to create a sample of bibliographic records in OCLC WorldCat for a demographic study of that bibliographic database. The results were published in my article, ‘From the Ubiquitous to the Nonexistent: A Demographic Study of OCLC WorldCat,’ Library Resources & Technical Services 50 (2): 79-90, Spring 2006.

I have since taken two samples for further studies of WorldCat.

Download: PDF, 221 KiB

—Prof. Jay H. Bernstein, Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn, New York

Hey, just wanted to say thanks for your random sequence generator. I work for a clinic run by Peru Mission in the city of Trujillo, Peru. We used your sequence generator to do a USAID health survey in one of the poorer neighborhoods in La Esperanza. It was quick and provided exactly what we needed for carrying out the random survey. Thank you once again!

—Charles Wright

Thank you for offering the random number generator. I have used it for a research on the effects of target specific communications in a N=2000 population of Dutch War Veterans. In the experimental setting it was necessary to randomise the research population and to divide them over four sub-groups, similar in size. The only acceptable way was to do so by adding a randomised variable in SPSS. Afterwards it was possible to assign the subjects to one of the groups by sorting on the randomized variable. Of course I gave due credit in the report by mentioning your service and revealing the URL.

—drs. Rudy C. de Jong, Dronten Professional Agricultural University, The Netherlands

Hi,

I'm just writing to say a big thank you for creating your lovely sequence generator. It has helped me so much in my area of psychological research, very simply by creating a sequence for me to administer experimental tasks. But without it, my job would have been a lot more difficult.

Thank you very much.

—Meredith Blampied

I use Random.org to generate a random order for multiple stimuli used in human psychophysical testing. It's a welcome improvement over the book of random number tables I used in my youth, long ago.

—Professor Mark Dubin, University of Colorado

I have used your random list generator, as well as your random integer generator, to pick cells in a grid that was over-layed a digital picture of an area in order to randomly select wildlife sampling locations. It has been a most useful program, and has saved me a lot of time in getting my wildlife inventory and monitoring program up and running. Thanks a bunch!

—Dan Dawson, Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida

I just wanted to let you know that and how I've used your delightful service. In the course of writing my thesis I needed to be able to randomly assign 15 items to five different categories and then randomly order the categories. I was going to use old fashioned D&D dice for the job but found your site and was able to do it in far less time! Thanks a lot, and you will be cited in my final document.

—Rose Campbell, Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, Oregon Health & Science University

I've been using your Random.org website to help create experiments for the last year and a half (by making sure trial orders are random) and would just like to say thank you for making it available. I was working in cognitive psychology as an undergrad and am now working in ophthamology at Johns Hopkins as a research assistant. Needless to say, both fields use numerous trials in experiments and the ability to quickly get ten to twenty lists of random sequences has made it very easy to gain more control in the research I'm working on.

—Francesca Fortenbaugh, Johns Hopkins University

I am using the random sequence generator to take a 15% sample of the archaeological potsherds I am studying. More specifically, I am studying the ceramic vessels and fragments collected, over the course of eight years, from an early Spanish colonial town in Central America. The town was occupied for only a generation, so there was minimal change through time in ceramic style. For each excavation unit and level, I analyze all potsherds that include handles, rims, painted decoration, unusual clay characteristics, and the like. These are my diagnostic sherds. The remainder do not provide enough information to make analyzing and recording each one individually worthwhile, but I don't want to neglect them entirely, as in certain contexts they make up a high percentage of what we have. So, I use your random sequence generator to help me select 15% of this non-diagnostic remainder for study. Thank you for the help.

—Jeb J. Card, Department of Anthropology, Tulane University

I am using the number generator to randomly assign research participants in an experiment. It's very important that anonymity be maintained, as the questionnaires they answer contain very personal info. I use the generator to assign numbers to each folder, then when people come in they get the next folder in the stack. I am also a lecturer in statistics at the University of New Mexico and will be using the generator to talk about probability! Thanks!

—Marianna D. LaNoue, Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico

Dear Randomizers: I'm an undergraduate doing my first big research project. The whole idea seemed a little random, but I realized most of my classmates, as well as former students, lose the power of their study over having a nonrandom sample. Your generator made choosing a truly random sample, easy and intriguing. I was able to have a different set of numbers for each group without more than a few clicks. You've helped put me to the head of the class!

—Christine Whetmore, Southern Adventist University

I needed to obtain several runs of true (genuine) random numbers so that I could set up a three-tier system of 60 randomly assigned sample plots for a vegetation control study. Your informative and useful site saved me some time, thanks again.

—Jason Hall, Department of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation, University of Florida

I am an archaeologist, looking into settlement and subsistence patterns in the Northern Great Basin of the western United States. The project involves sampling an area (a survey universe), which has been divided into three ecozones, and then further subdivided into 200×200 meter quadrats. Each quadrat is given a number according to what ecozone it falls in. The numbers are then chosen randomly (this is where you came in) and that quadrat is surveyed for archaeology. The old-fashioned method of choosing numbers was by the toss of the dice. Your website makes it extremely easy for me to draw the amount of random numbers I need in advance, which essentially makes planning field work easier. Well thanks again!

—Cheryl Foster-Curley, US Bureau of Land Management

Your random number generator is great. I needed exactly this sort of service, to generate random numbers for a stratified, random sampling strategy for an archaeological survey, here in California, USA.

—Mike Avina, Jones & Stokes Associates, USA

I study the life-cycle of viruses, and I perform lots of tissue culture experiments. In order to try to develop theories to explain some results I was getting, I wrote a computer program that uses a Monte Carlo scheme to simulate infection of cells by viruses. I need a different random number for each simulated virus, in order to randomly assign it to a cell that it ‘infects.’ In order for the results to be meaningful, I need to simulate tens of thousands of ‘cells’ and hundreds of thousands of ‘viruses,’ so I need hundreds of thousands of random numbers. The pseudo-random numbers produced by the Apple Macintosh built-in linear congruental generator proved themselves to be not good enough for the job, as I found that some numbers were chosen too often, a definite no-no for my purposes. Then I saw the NY Times article about this site and gave it a try. First I tried using Random.org numbers to seed the Macintosh generator at frequent intervals during the execution of the simulation, but it did not solve the problem. So I tested using all numbers from this site and they passed my quality test. So now I download several batches at a time of 10,000 numbers between 1 and 40,000 and string them into big files as the sources of my numbers. I'd like to be able to download them in even bigger batches, though. Thanks for a truly useful service!

—David N. Levy, University of Alabama at Birmingham

I used your random number page to get truly random numbers between 0–99 in order to study the Monte Carlo method for arithmetic solution of problems and to simulate the beta decay of nuclei. Thanks a lot, it saved me the trouble of having to input into MS Excel, 500 numbers, which were pseudo-random, anyway.

—Yannis Thomopoulos, Department of Physics, University of Athens

I use Random.org to generate random numbers for a random sample of informants when I conduct surveys. It really beats using the dart board or hat.

—Rod Stubina, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida