ProbabilityManagement.org Announces the Metalog Interface

by Sam L. Savage

Wait a Minute!

Claude Shannon’s information theory says you can’t store 100 million numbers in 88 bytes.

True, but Tom Keelin’s Metalog distribution, driven by Doug Hubbard’s HDR pseudo-random number generator, can create identical streams of up to 100 million random variates on any platform. Now ChanceCalc 1.3, currently in beta, includes an interface to Tom Keelin’s elegant Excel Metalog templates. Using these templates, you can create 3.0 JSON libraries or paste Metalog simulation formulas directly into Excel for use with ChanceCalc, the SIPmath Modeler Tools, @RISK, or Crystal Ball.

How Does This Work?

Like Taylor series, Metalogs can take any number of terms (see Wikipedia). But for practical purposes, 18 parameters will model virtually any continuous distribution you will face. In its standard configuration, the HDR generator takes up to four initialization seeds, which provides great flexibility when sharing SIPMath™ 3.0 Libraries with others. The version of the HDR built into our tools, which has been limited in numerical accuracy to support Excel, can generate 100 million random numbers before the rubber band breaks (or rather, before the results on the dieharder test deteriorate). So that’s a total of 22 input parameters (88 bytes) to generate nearly any distribution. The open SIPmath 3.0 Standard wraps these 22 parameters in JSON objects containing metadata that can be used in Excel, Python, R, or virtually any other computer platform.

The first commercial package to read and write the SIPmath 3.0 Standard was Frontline Systems’ Analytic Solver. This powerful Excel add-in performs both simulation and optimization, including stochastic optimization. Our new interface lets you use Tom’s templates directly.

Want to Learn More?

We are looking for beta testers for this new software. All those interested in becoming beta testers will need to attend a free information session where I will demonstrate the software.

Learn more and Register

Watch Sam Savage and Alex Sidorenko discuss the new Metalog interface