• Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    Using a camera in a completely dark room is a better source of entropy than one pointed at lava lamps.

    Why is that? Naturally occurring or manufacturing-related impurities in the optical chip?

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      All digital cameras are imperfect - there is always a bit of noise, but usually it doesn’t come through since your scene is bright enough to make small amounts of noise imperceptible. In a completely dark room the camera still tries to get data from the photo sensor, but the noise (created by temperature fluctuations, imperfections in the chip itself and so on) is all you get. You may theoretically be able to predict the noise on short time scales, but it’s a chaotic system.