ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Algorithmically random sequence

Hey kiddo, have you ever heard of an algorithmically random sequence? No? Okay, let me try to explain it to you in a way that's easy to understand.

Imagine you are playing a game with a friend where you take turns picking numbers from 1 to 10. You might choose 3, and then your friend chooses 7, and then you choose 2, and so on. This is an example of a sequence of numbers that you are creating.

Now, imagine that a computer is making this sequence instead of you and your friend. The computer has a set of instructions called an algorithm that tells it how to pick the numbers. If the algorithm is very simple, like always picking even numbers, the sequence will not be very random. But if the algorithm is very complex and unpredictable, the sequence will be very random.

An algorithmically random sequence is a sequence of numbers that is created by a computer using a very complex and unpredictable algorithm. It is so random that you can't predict what the next number in the sequence will be.

To give you an idea of how random these sequences can be, imagine flipping a coin. You know that there's a 50/50 chance that it will land on heads or tails. But imagine if you flipped the same coin a million times. The sequence of heads and tails that you end up with is unpredictable and random. That's kind of like how an algorithmically random sequence works.

So, to summarize, an algorithmically random sequence is a sequence of numbers that is created by a computer using a complex and unpredictable algorithm. It's so random that you can't predict what the next number will be. Just like flipping a coin a million times, the sequence is unpredictable and random.