Why does the state of the random number generator have 627 words?
Subject: Why does the state of the random number generator have 627 words?
From: Raymond Toy
Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2011 07:47:06 -0500
On 1/26/11 6:04 AM, Matthew Gwynne wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Looking at the documentation at
> http://maxima.sourceforge.net/docs/manual/en/maxima_5.html#IDX113 of
> make_random_state, it suggest that the state of the random number
> generator is comprised of 627 32-bit words, however in the MT19937
> paper and other references to the random number generator there are
> 624 32-bit words in the generator. Is 627 a typo, or is there some
> significance to these extra 3 x 32-bits?
A closer look shows that the state actually consists of 624 words of
state and 3 extra words. One is used as an index into the state to
choose which word is to be returned. The other two are constants used
by the algorithm.
Ray