Johanna Franklin

11 Apr 2014, 2pm-3:30pm, Oak Hall 408

When shown a binary sequence, most people can intuitively describe it as “random” or “not random.” In this talk, I will characterize randomness formally using three different intuitive approaches as starting points: unpredictability, incompressibility, and a lack of distinguishing properties. If time permits, I will discuss different formalizations within each approach that result in different kinds of randomness and how well these formalizations fit our intuitions about other properties a random sequence should have.

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