Random Number Generators

Mentor: Can you come up with several fair ways to randomly choose a number from 1 to 3? From 1 to 5? From 1 to N? (That means your method should work for any number.)

Student 1: We can put as many numbered balls in a bag as we want, and pull one out each time we need a random number:

Student 2: Or we can buy a lottery machine:

Student 3: Or we can build a spinner:

Mentor: Indeed, all these methods will work for any number. We can also use a computer program to give us numbers in a fair way. These programs, not surprisingly, are called random number generators.

Can you come up with more ways to randomly choose a number?