Is randomness just a fancy word for saying we don't have all the information? Can everything in the universe be boiled down to cause and effect? Or is it possible for an uncaused cause to exist?

Randomness is defined as the absence of structure or pattern. It's when effects occur that cannot be traced to any cause. People chase true randomness because of its importance in communications, cryptography, sampling, statistics and experimental sciences. It's the holy grail for secure communication and unbiased results.

Take an example of rolling a die. The outcome depends on several factors: the die's mass and shape, the initial position of the die, the speed and angle at which it is thrown, the texture of the surface, etc. Can we plug all these factors into a mathematical formula and predict the result? Difficult, yes; impossible, no. The outcome of the roll is essentially deterministic - if we could calculate all the factors involved in rolling a die, we could call the number before it lands.

Here's the thing: humans aren't good at being random. Our brains are wired to create, spot, and think in patterns. Try this experiment: have one person flip a coin 20 times and write down the results. Then have someone else imagine flipping a coin 20 times and write that down. Compare the lists, and we will spot the fake one instantly. The person making it up will avoid long streaks, like five tails in a row, because it doesn't "feel" random. But true randomness doesn't care about what happened. It doesn't have a memory of previous flips, and long chains can happen.

Computers aren't much better. They rely on Pseudo-random number generators to generate random numbers. Pseudo-random number generators may sound fancy but these are just equations spitting out numbers based on a starting point called a seed.

This lack of true randomness is a problem. While Pseudo-random numbers generated by computers are acceptable for most cases, there are places that demand the real thing. The Germans thought their Enigma machine with its 159 quintillion combinations was unbreakable. It wasn't. Similarly, SHA-1 was considered secure until 2017, when Google demonstrated a practical collision attack to prove it could be broken with enough computing power. The WEP protocol for Wi-Fi encryption was cracked in 2001 because its key generation wasn't random enough. Randomness isn't just a nerdy concept, it's critical for secure communication, sampling and even understanding evolution.

So where do we get true randomness from? Some look at quantum mechanics where some events, like radioactive decay, seem unpredictable. But, still, we are not certain if it's truly random or just too complex for us to crack. The jury's still out on whether the universe allows for pure, uncaused randomness.

Deep down, everything in the universe seems to follow some kind of pattern. We might not understand it completely, but we can't deny there isn't one. Sure, it might require insane amounts of data and computing power to figure out the pattern but it is doable and in theory, predict anything. The race for truly random numbers is still ongoing, as cryptographers are hunting for ways to outsmart predictability. Until then, randomness might just be our name for the gaps in what we know.