I keep trying to figure it out, but every resource I find uses the same wording
In: Mathematics
In statistics, your population is the pool of items that you are going to pull a random subset from. Knowing any biases that exist in your overall population is important. For instance, if you do a survey pertinent to household income in New York city compared to rural Montana, you’ll get different data.
A seed has to do with random number generation in computers. Since computers are inherently predictable, randomness is redefined to mean unpredictable and equally likely amongst all possible answers. To do this, the computer runs some math that cycles some really large number around, and then gives you a subset of that number. Since the algorithm is constant, the only way to get a different series of numbers is to choose a different starting point. That starting point is your seed. Common seeds used are either based on current time, or on some measurement of something physical like mouse movement, keystrokes, or hard drive response time.
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