What is Mersenne Twister (MT)?
Mersenne Twister(MT) is a pseudorandom
number generating algorithm
developped by
Makoto Matsumoto
and Takuji Nishimura (alphabetical order) in 1996/1997.
An improvement on initialization
was given on 2002 Jan.
MT has the following merits:
- It is designed with consideration on the flaws
of various existing generators.
- The algorithm is coded into a C-source downloadable below.
- Far longer period and far higher order of equidistribution
than any other implemented generators.
(It is proved that the period is 2^19937-1,
and 623-dimensional equidistribution property is assured.)
- Fast generation.
(Although it depends on the system, it is reported that
MT is sometimes faster than the standard ANSI-C library
in a system with pipeline and cache memory.)
(Note added in 2004/3: on 1998, usually MT was much
faster than rand(), but the algorithm for rand() has been
substituted, and now there are no much difference in speed.)
- Efficient use of the memory.
(The implemented C-code mt19937.c consumes only 624 words
of working area.)
Asks and acknowledgements
The origin of the name MT
Why MT? More Reasons
Return to MT's homepage