An important 20th century work in the field of statistics and random numbers was the RAND Corporation's book of tables containing, and entitled, A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, published in 1955. It was produced in the 1950s by an electronic simulation of a roulette wheel attached to a computer, the results of which were then carefully filtered and tested before being used to generate the table. The RAND table was an important breakthrough in delivering random numbers because such a large and carefully prepared table had never before been available. In addition to being available in book form, one could also order the digits on a series of punch cards as well.

The main use of the tables was in statistics and the experimental design of scientific experiments, especially those which employed the Monte Carlo method.

External links

• Information at rand.org
• Introduction of the book