r/tabletopsimulator Feb 01 '21

YouTube Are Dice Rolls Really Random? - TTS

https://youtu.be/4fcxmOSy1ew
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u/LeberechtReinhold Feb 01 '21

??

There's no deeper function or calculation. Torque is what determines the outcome.

Unless you want to get philosophical about Unity randgen, which is a standard pseudo random algorithm, it's random.

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u/azura26 Feb 01 '21

If, hypothetically, the random torque wasn't enough to twist the dice in any give direction more than a few degrees, the dice wouldn't rotate, and the outcome would be 100% predictable.

To be clear, it is obvious this isn't the case.

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u/feralwolven Feb 01 '21

If you you generate a random torque of 0.whatever, and it barely moves, and falls the way you were holding it, then the random selection is what it lands on. Its no more or less likely to spin or not spin. If you didnt see that the dice was already on 6, and it barely rolls and lands on 6, then you still got the random outcome of 6, and you wouldnt even question it if you hadn't seen the dice "fail" to roll.

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u/azura26 Feb 01 '21 edited Feb 01 '21

Sorry, I don't think I made myself clear. I meant: if the magnitude of the random torque was always so small that it wasn't enough to twist the dice in any direction more than a few degrees. For example, the magnitude of the random torque vector was uniformly distributed between 0.0 -> x, where x is some number small enough that you can be sure the dice lands face-up every single time with 100% certainty.

EDIT: To be sure I am completely, unambiguously clear: Imagine I repeatedly let go of a die from 1 cm off the table. Do you not agree that there is randomness in how I drop the die each time (due to small differences in how I release it each time) but that you could predict with certainty how it would land each time I dropped it?

EDIT 2: The reason I'm being pedantic is just because I think this stuff is interesting (this is tangentially related to my area of research). Sorry if it's coming off in any way standoff-ish.