Re: [OctDev] random numbers for distributed computations

[Francesco Potorti`]

>I have a question about this. If a RNG has a period of X, that means that  
>there are X unique values that are generated, and then the sequence repeats. 

No, it means that the sequence repeats after X values are produced.  The
period length says nothing about the space of values.  However, for good
general purpose generators, the size of the space of values is much
smaller than the period.

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