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Three-dimensional plot of 100,000 values generated with RANDU. Each point represents 3
consecutive pseudorandom values. It is clearly seen that the points fall in 15 twodimensional planes.

RANDU is a linear congruential pseudorandom number generator of the ParkMiller type,

which has been used since the 1960s.[1] It is defined by the recurrence:

with the initial seed number,

pseudorandom integers

as an odd number. It generates

which are uniformly distributed in the interval[1, 231 1], but

in practical applications are often mapped into pseudorandom rationals

in the

interval (0, 1), by the formula:

.
It is widely considered to be one of the most ill-conceived random number
generators ever designed.[citation needed] It fails the spectral testbadly for dimensions
greater than 2, and every integer result is odd. However, at least eight low-order bits
are dropped when converted to single-precision floating-point.
The reason for choosing these particular values is that with a 32-bit-integer word
size, the arithmetic of mod 231 and

calculations could be

done quickly, using special features of some computer hardware.

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Problems with multiplier and modulus[edit]

To show the problem with these values, of multiplier 65539 and modulus 2 31,
consider the following calculation where every term should be taken mod 2 31. Start
by writing the recursive relation as:

which becomes, after expanding the quadratic factor:

because 232 mod 231 = 0

and allows us to show the correlation between three points as:

As a result of this correlation, the points in three-dimensional space

(mod 231) fall in 15 planes.[2] As a result of the wide use of RANDU in
the early 1970s, many results from that time are seen as suspicious.
[3]