I heard this interesting story on All Things Considered on random number generation via quantum entanglement. The result was reported in Nature (the full paper is also available). I bet Scott will have something more to say about it (eventually), but it seems interesting to me, at least.
Perhaps I should go learn some quantum physics…
An Ergodic Walk 
yes! i heard that too. and it was awesome. i love NPR.
I wonder about all of these claims that quantum mechanics uses “absolutely, positively, 100 percent random” values. As far as I know, this is just an untestable assumption made by fans of quantum mechanics. Maybe we will all get to have a laugh when someone discovers that the universe actually uses rand()…
I agree — it all seems “epistomologically shaky” as it were. Since I know very little physics, it’s even more difficult for me to evaluate what is going on.
Okay, I read the abstract and see that the authors are making a stronger claim than I thought possible. Every bit of quantum mechanics that I know of can be simulated on a computer using a pseudorandom number generator, so I have a hard time imagining how they “certify” their random numbers! Anand, can you send me a PDF?
I’ll send you a copy as soon as I get my stupid remote library proxy thing working…