Dice

More generally, a variety of analogous devices are often described as dice, though the word "dice" used without qualifiers refers to traditional dice by default. Such specialized dice may have cubical or other polyhedral shapes, with faces marked with various collections of symbols, and be used to produce other random results than one through six. There are also "loaded" or "crooked" dice (especially otherwise traditional ones), meant to produce skewed or even predictable results, for purposes of deception or amusement.

Common dice are small cubes 1 to 3�cm along an edge (16�mm being the standard), whose faces are numbered from one to six (usually by patterns of dots called pips). It is traditional to combine pairs of numbers that total seven to opposite faces (it has been since at least classical antiquity)[citation needed]; this implies that at one vertex the faces 1, 2 and 3 intersect. It leaves one other abstract design choice: the faces representing 1, 2 and 3 respectively can be placed in either clockwise or counterclockwise order about this vertex. If the 1, 2 and 3 faces run counterclockwise around their common vertex, the die is called "right handed"; if they run clockwise it is called "left handed". Standard modern Western dice are right-handed, whereas Chinese dice are often left-handed.

Dice are thrown to provide random numbers for gambling and other games, and thus are a type of hardware random number generator. The result of a die roll is random in the sense of lacking predictability, not lacking cause. Exactly how dice are thrown determines how they will land according to the laws of classical mechanics. However, dice also can exhibit sensitive dependence on initial conditions, making it difficult to predict the outcome of a die roll even with good information about exactly how it is thrown. Some people claim that the pips on the face of certain styles of dice can cause a small bias, but there is no research to support this claim.[citation needed] The bias is reduced somewhat in the Japanese die with its oversized single pip (pictured).[citation needed] Casino dice have markings that are flush, offering the assurance that this brings them very close to providing true uniformly distributed random numbers.

Precision backgammon dice are also made with the pips filled in as with casino dice. While casino dice are noticeably larger than common dice, with sharp edges and corners, precision backgammon dice tend to be slightly smaller. Their corners and edges are rounded to allow better movement inside the dice cup and stop chaotic rolls from damaging the playing surface.

Some computer games, such as clones of board games, must use computer generated dice. The values are usually determined by a random number generator, then displayed as a visual representation of a die. Some sites which show examples of computer generated random dice are GoTinker and random.

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