Let’s not leave anything to chance

How that process to generate random numbers takes places requires some complicated statistics that are outside the scope of this course. But there are a couple of things to keep in mind: 1. The process focuses on creating a even distribution of randomly chosen numbers. 2. The computer pulls a seed from somewhere to help to randomize the process. It is sometimes the previous random number chosen or the system time. 3. No number generated is ever truly random but they come close enough.

The most common way to obtain random numbers in JAVA is to use the random method of the Math class. This method returns a number between zero and up to but no including 1. So the method could return a.123, 0,.89,.5, but it would never return a 1.

You can change the range of numbers for Math.random() by using a multiplier and an offset in the following way: multiplier*Math.random() + offset So if you wanted to generate numbers between 300 and 400, you would use the following: 101 * Math.random() Note that the multiplier is 101 because it is 101 numbers between 300 and 400 inclusively

Math.random() returns a double. To obtain an integer, you can just cast the output as an integer in the following manner: (int)(101 * Math.random() + 300) Do NOT do the following. It will result in a zero since it casts the output of Math.random() as an int which always produces a 0. Always cast after multiplying by the multiplier. 100 * (int)Math.random()

JAVA also provides a Random Class which provides a larger variety of options. Look at the API and Lesson 30 in Blue Pelican for more details. It provides both a nextDouble() method which works the same way as Math.random() as well as nextInt(n) which returns a random int from 0 up to n-1