Many computer applications rely on random number generation.
For example, if you want to write a program to simulate a poker game, you don't want each player to get the same cards every hand. Since some programs require a large number of random numbers, we can greatly speed up the program by using a faster, more efficient random number generator. The method of random number generation I chose to look at, the linear congruential method, works by computing each successive random number from the previous. In his book, The Art of Computer Programming , Donald Knuth presents several rules for maximizing the length of time before the random number generator comes up with the same value as the seed. According to Knuth's rules, if M is prime, we can let C be 0 and he suggests that this variant of the linear congruential random number generator may be faster since it leaves out one addition operation.