Talk:Pseudorandom sequence

Moved from article:

[If this were not a badly written stub article, I'd put this comment on the discussion page. If one refers to "2N-1", one should say what "N" is. Are these supposed to be sequences of 0s and 1s? If so, the author should say so! If not, the comment below about "the all-zero" case is cryptic at best. To omit from this article any mention of the use of Markov-chain Monte-Carlo methods and other Monte-Carlo methods in statistics while mentioning other applications seems to be a case of misplaced priorities.]

[To suggest that pseudorandom sequences come only from the mathematics of Galois fields seems exaggerated.]

(The all-zero case is avoided; hence there are 2N-1 elements instead of 2N elements in a maximally-long sequence.) They find application in spread spectrum, Ultra Wideband, and other telecommunication and communication engineering uses. In original practice circa WW II, "PN" referred to Pseudonoise, but over time, the meaning has changed to Pseudorandom with the advent of digital technology.

I've replaced the former article (which didn't really say anything general about pseudorandom numbers) with a short definition with a link to pseudorandom number generator. Obviously the original author knew more about radio communications than PRNGs. -- Tim Starling 11:31 22 May 2003 (UTC)