6.5 Randomness

Many programming languages have functions that return pseudo-random numbers. The prefix “pseudo” is there because they are not genuinely random numbers but, nevertheless, they do well on statistical measurements of how well-distributed the results are. number$random

Given four possible events, E₀, E₁, E₂, and E₃, with associated probabilities p₀, p₁, p₂, and p₃, how might we use random numbers to simulate these events happening with

The probabilities add up to 1.0, as expected. random programming language$Python

In Python, the random() function returns a random real number r such that 0.0 ≤ r < 1.0. We determine that one of the E₀, E₁, E₂, and E₃, events occurred based on the value of r computed. random()`function-name random`module-name

If you are not using Python, use whatever similar function is available in your programming language and environment.

The general scheme is to run the following...