Randomize

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Title: Randomize
Authors: Andy Weir
Category:supplementals
Number of Highlights: 27
Date: 2026-05-10
Last Highlighted: **

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Summary

Document Note

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Highlights

“Quantum physics doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Please don’t try to think about it too much. It can be very distressing.”

Tags:quantum_mechanics

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“That does sound solid, but remember a system is only as secure as the humans who operate it.”

Tags:security,technology

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Her parents knew they’d never find her a man as smart as she was. So they focused on “smart enough not to be left behind.” Prashant was brilliant in his own ways. It was a wonderful match.

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At times he was a complicated man, but at other times he could be very simple. Finding those simple moments and bringing him joy was one of Sumi’s greatest pleasures.

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There’s no such thing as an actual random-number generator. Computers create pseudorandom numbers.” “What’s the difference?” “Pseudorandom numbers are made with a complicated math formula. You plug one number in—called the seed, or the starting point, for the mathematical formula—and you get a sequence of seemingly random numbers out. The formula has exponentiation and remainders and all sorts of other stuff to make it non-reverse-engineerable.”

Tags:scifi,technology

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“You’re more intelligent than I could ever hope to be. I feel no shame in admitting it. But there’s no substitute for experience.

Tags:experience,intelligence

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“Quantum computing is a totally different animal than normal computing,” he began. “It takes advantage of weird quantum physics properties like superposition and entanglement to solve math problems. It’s usually way slower than normal computers at math, but for some problems, it’s exponentially faster.”

Tags:quantum_mechanics,scifi

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But in a city of extreme displays, silent quality appealed to Rutledge more than a neon sign saying I’M IMPORTANT.

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“Once they’re entangled, they are guaranteed to be the same when randomized.”

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Our long-term storage unit is in our vault. You’ve never been in our vault. But I bet there’s some skin cells of yours on it from when you handled it before.”

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“We fight quantum with quantum.”

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“All that matters is that the system has a minor performance optimization that creates the security hole we’re going to take advantage of.”

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“Two parties can’t communicate via quantum measurements. But they can both observe their respective results and act accordingly.”

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He wasn’t about revenge or money. He was about respect.

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She pressed on. “Our new company will make quantum random-number generators. Our product will just be a box that makes a stream of truly random numbers via quantum properties and outputs them at a steady rate. No configuration. No operating system. Just a serial port.”

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She packed three immaculately ironed and folded white shirts, along with two pairs of black slacks. She added two blue ties and threw in a red one just for fun. He looked so handsome with a red tie on, but he always wore blue.

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Andy Weir is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian, which was adapted into an Academy Award–nominated film directed by Ridley Scott. A devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics and orbital mechanics, he’s also the author of Artemis. He lives in California.

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“Okay, but remember it’s only as good as the security on this computer itself,” said Prashant. “If this system gets hacked, someone could replace the software with a pseudorandom algorithm on a seed they pick. They’d know all the numbers in advance.”

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The Babylon does keno draws every fifteen minutes—there’ll be a draw at precisely midnight on Sunday. That’s when we strike. We only have one attempt, though. The long-term memory has 512 qbits, and a keno draw is twenty eight-bit numbers.”

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“Give me a second … ,” she said. “I’m thinking.” “About what?” “A way out of this.” “Um,” he said. “There isn’t a way out. The police will be here in a few minutes.” “Then I have a few minutes to think.”

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“It’s trivial.” She executed a program on the console. In less than a second, it was done. “That’s it. Every qbit on my storage unit is now entangled with a qbit on the unit you’re taking to the Babylon.”

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The scammers used small bets, and hundreds of them. There was no way to sort out the cheaters from legitimate players, so the Cove had to pay out on all the tickets. It’s all over the news.”

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“Is that all?” Rutledge said. Let’s do it.” “Wow!” Chen said. I didn’t expect you to say yes so fast.” Rutledge shrugged. “I’d be an idiot to ignore my own IT department.”

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He fiddled with the spoon. “Does it have to be you placing the bet?” “Of course it does,” she said. “They will know you as the man who set up their computer.”

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The casino’s keno machine would exhaust our supply of entangled qbits in seconds. So the trick is making them use the long-term memory as RAM and striking right at that moment.”

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“The past few years have had major advances. Noise reduction is solved, coherence protection is damn near perfect, and long-term state management can keep a qbit safe for months. But today is special. Today, QuanaTech’s new Model 707 hits the market. It’s a total game changer. It’s a 1,024-qbit system, with a 512-qbit long-term memory capability. And we’re talking logical qbits, not just physical—”

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“Why not entangle all the qbits and not just the long-term storage ones?” She tasted the kheer. Just right.

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