ON A BRISK autumn day in the capital, I crossed Sulwood Drive on foot and started slogging my way up the southern slope of Mount Taylor.
Tree coverage is dense here, and the embankment steep, but I stayed true to my course looking down at my phone periodically to make sure I was on track.
As I came closer to the GPS dot, the bush gave way to a clearing of five metres wide atop some ancient grey rocks. It was the only reprieve I could see in any direction from the thick vegetation.
I turned to the southwest and was presented with a magnificent view of the Urambi Hills which I had walked earlier that day, and the Brindabellas beyond. Immediately I vowed to come back for a sunset with a few beers next time.
This was my first foray into the obscure pastime of Randonauting, one of which I've been leaning on heavily over this past week as I duck outside for my allocated 60 minutes of exercise.
IT'S A MOVEMENT which began in the USA some two years ago, but has since spread across the world via the easy to use Randonaut app which generates a series of GPS co-ordinates within a specified radius of your location.
As the name suggests, it's totally random. Even more exciting, it taps into the Australian National University's fascinating Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG) to create each request for co-ordinates.
The idea is simple. Set a radius limit (I usually go for one kilometre given the 60-minute time limit), walk to the generated spot and repeat.
For the metaphysically minded, more often than not you will be taken to a previously unknown location at which you will feel some kind of connection. I was once taken to a nondescript carpark in Barton, specifically the spaces numbered 56 and 57 - the birth years of my parents.
But for even the most hardened skeptics, the app offers a new way to explore your immediate surroundings if you're sick of repeating the same hour-long stroll.
Common sense obviously applies. Don't trespass if the app sends you onto private property. Supervise your children. Wear your facemask. Avoid swimming into Lake Burley Griffin if the dot comes up somewhere between the Kings and Commonwealth Avenue bridges.
Otherwise, it's a surprisingly enjoyable, free way to explore your surroundings.
PROFESSOR Ping Koy Lam is a quantum physicist at the ANU who works closely with its QRNG, which has been generating random numbers for the past decade.
Since 2012, there have been more than 300 million requests worldwide for random numbers, everyone from big banks to paintbursh-wielding artists.
"It varies from Amazon to Cisco, to research institutions to even counties and community centres who want to do Bingo," Lam says.
"Even artists who want to choose fabrics and colours and do not want to have a personal influence in the choices. We serve the art community and also the scientific community."
But how is a random number generated?
Before tapping into quantum energy, computers were used to generate random outputs. But the word random was not entirely accurate.
"These are not true random numbers, sometimes if you're not careful after a long period you might be able to see some pattern," Lam says.
"And also the randomness that's generated is predetermined by your code so they're not truly random. This is quite a well known problem for computer scientists.
"You can toss a coin, you can roll a dice, you can create something and you'll be able to get randomness out of the outcome of the experiment. In these kind of set ups you also need to be mindful of the loaded dice or the biases that is caused by the imperfection of the machine that you have built."
Enter the QRNG.
It's able to record the constant randomness which is being generated all around us at a particle level.
"We tap into quantum physics and I argue that this is the purest form of randomness because randomness is intrinsic to all quantum theory," Lam says.
"Quantum theory says that everything, when you observe it carefully enough, is random in nature. Even to the extent that when you have complete emptiness, complete void, a space vacuum, there's nothing in there, you would still be able to find randomness.
"People call it vacuum fluctuations, quantum noise, or zero point energy. At the ANU we tune our lasers and our detectors to measure very accurately this random noise which is contained in all of empty space.
"We measure it, record it, and then convert it into random numbers of any kind you want. It can be binary, it can be hexadecimal, it can be different colours."
The randomly generated data can be used for online passwords, computer games, or to decide a digital raffle. Or it can be applied to GPS co-ordinates.
The founders of Randonauting claim its users are able to influence the GPS data through the power of thought - hence the high number of co-incidences it professes to create.
No science can yet back up this claim, but a research team at Princeton University are exploring the possibility of humans influencing quantum energy with their minds through its Global Consciousness Program.
ON A CHILLY Canberra night, five days into an already frustrating lockdown, the Randonaut app takes me about 800m down the road to the middle of a large oval.
I walk out to the middle in almost pitch darkness to the location I've been directed to, and look up to see colourful mural on the side of the changerooms which simply says 'Perseverance'.
