Generating random numbers

Intermediate Google Sheets

Richie Cotton

Data Evangelist at DataCamp

Uniform random numbers

Generating Uniform random numbers (1)

	A	B
1	Command	Result
2	=RAND()	0.6087775801
3	=RAND()	0.6543340551
4	=RAND()	0.0904296682
5	=RAND()	0.9047422407
6	=RAND()	0.3234227739

Generating Uniform random numbers (2)

	A	B
1	Command	Result
2	=RANDBETWEEN(-10, 10)	6
3	=RANDBETWEEN(-10, 10)	-8
4	=RANDBETWEEN(-10, 10)	0
5	=RANDBETWEEN(-10, 10)	10
6	=RANDBETWEEN(-10, 10)	-4

Normal random numbers

Generating normal random numbers

	A	B
1	Command	Result
2	=NORMINV(RAND(), 0, 1)	0.2632031214
3	=NORMINV(RAND(), 0, 1)	-2.125216831
4	=NORMINV(RAND(), 0, 1)	1.7782466883
5	=NORMINV(RAND(), 0, 1)	0.3543720507
6	=NORMINV(RAND(), 0, 1)	-0.505721445

Generating numbers from other distributions

	A	B
1	Command	Result
2	=LOGINV(RAND(), 0, 1)	5.5092905838
3	=TINV(RAND(), 5)	1.4659633351
4	=FISHERINV(RAND())	0.7342333678
5	=FINV(RAND(), 2, 2)	0.8368314521
6	=BETAINV(RAND(), 1, 1, -10, 10)	-4.030918093

Summary

• RAND() generates random Uniform numbers between 0 and 1.
• RANDBETWEEN() generates random Uniform integers between two limits.
• NORMINV(RAND()) generates random normal numbers.
• *INV(RAND()) generates random numbers from other distributions.

Let's get random!

Intermediate Google Sheets