History

In ancient history, the concepts of chance and randomness were intertwined with that of fate. Many ancient peoples threw dice to determine fate, and this later evolved into games of chance. Most ancient cultures used various methods of divination to attempt to circumvent randomness and fate.

The Chinese of 3000 years ago were the earliest people to formalise odds and chance. The Greek philosophers discussed randomness at length, but only in non-quantitative forms. It was only in the 16th century that Italian mathematicians began to formalise the odds associated with various games of chance. The invention of the calculus had a positive impact on the formal study of randomness.

Randomness in the world

In the physical sciences

In the 19th century, scientists used the idea of random motions of molecules in the development of statistical mechanics to explain phenomena in thermodynamics and the properties of gases.

In biology

The modern evolutionary synthesis ascribes the observed diversity of life to random genetic mutations followed by natural selection. The latter retains some random mutations in the gene pool due to the systematically improved chance for survival and reproduction that those mutated genes confer on individuals who possess them.

In statistics

In statistics, randomness is used to create simple random samples. This lets surveys of completely random groups of people provide realistic data. Common methods of doing this include drawing names out of a hat or using a random digit chart. A random digit chart is a large table of random digits.