Jair Trejo - Non Sequitur: An exploration of Python's random module
Channel: EuroPython Conference
Date: 13/09/2014

Jair Trejo - Non Sequitur: An exploration of Python's random module
[EuroPython 2014]
[24 July 2014]

An exploration of Python's random module for the curious programmer, this talk will give a little background in statistics and pseudorandom number generation, explain the properties of python's choice of pseudorandom generator and explore through visualizations the different distributions provided by the module.

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# Audience
Non mathematical people who wants a better understanding of Python's random module.

# Objectives
The audience will understand pseudorandom number generators, the properties of Python's Mersenne Twister and the differences and possible use cases between the distributions provided by the `random` module. 

# The talk
I will start by talking about what randomness means and then about how we try to achieve it in computing through pseudorandom number generators (5 min.)

I will give a brief overview of pseudorandom number generation techniques, show how their quality can be assessed and finally talk about Python's Mersenne Twister and why it is a fairly good choice. (10 min.)

Finally I will talk about how from randomness we can build generators with interesting probability distributions. I'll compare through visualizations thos provided in Python's `random` module and show examples of when they can be useful in real-life. (10 min.)