Mind Over Matter -- in miniature by Mario
Varvoglis, Ph.D.
Electronic dice: The Random
Number Generator (RNG)
The dice results coming out of Rhine’s lab and elsewhere were highly significant [see
Radin, D. & Ferrari, D.C.
(1991). Effects of consciousness on the fall of dice: a meta-analysis.
Journal of Scientific Exploration, 5, 61-83.
But not all experiments were
equally well-controlled. Dice have to be very carefully constructed to ensure that they
are truly balanced -- so that no one side is slightly favored over others. If there’s
the slightest bias, this could lead to results which seem to be due to PK, but are, in
truth, just artifacts (looks real, but is due to some error in the experiment). Although
there are ways for dealing with such problems, (e.g., what’s called
“counter-balanced designs” in experimental psychology), it obviously would be
better to have a perfectly random system, one which reliably operates according to the
laws of chance. A number of possibilities were explored, but the greatest technological
innovation came with the creation of a reliable electronic random device. Starting in the
late 1960s, the German physicist Helmut Schmidt introduced several Random Number
Generators (RNGs) for psi research -- devices which, on the basis of microphysical events
(such as radioactive decay, or electronic noise in chips), would produce truly
unpredictable, random numbers. |
