Gentle, James E. Random number generation and Monte Carlo methods. (English) Zbl 1028.65004 Statistics and Computing (Cham). New York, NY: Springer. xv, 381 p. (2003). This is the second edition of the textbook on random number generation and Monte Carlo methods by James E. Gentle, see Zbl 0972.65003 for the first edition (1998). The author provides a thorough survey of techniques of random number generation and the use of random numbers in Monte Carlo simulation. In the book basic principles are presented and, in addition, newer methods such as parallel random number generation, nonlinear congruential generators, quasi Monte Carlo methods, and Markov chain Monte Carlo. This second edition is approximately 50 testing of random number generators has been extended, it now provides more details about the tests and a discussion of recent software for testing. The section on applications of Monte Carlo methods has also been expanded and includes, e.g., material on computational physics and finance. The book contains a large bibliography (updated for the second edition) including WWW links and it could serve as the primary text or a supplementary text for various courses in computational statistics and other areas that rely on Monte Carlo simulation, e.g. numerical methods for stochastic differential equations or computational finance. Reviewer: Evelyn Buckwar (Berlin) Cited in 78 Documents MSC: 65C10 Random number generation in numerical analysis 65-02 Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to numerical analysis 65C05 Monte Carlo methods 11K45 Pseudo-random numbers; Monte Carlo methods 60H35 Computational methods for stochastic equations (aspects of stochastic analysis) 65C30 Numerical solutions to stochastic differential and integral equations 91G60 Numerical methods (including Monte Carlo methods) Keywords:random number generation; Monte Carlo methods; Monte Carlo studies in statistics; computational physics; computational finance; stochastic differential equations; textbook; nonlinear congruential generators; quasi Monte Carlo method; Markov chain Monte Carlo; bibliography Citations:Zbl 0972.65003 PDFBibTeX XMLCite \textit{J. E. Gentle}, Random number generation and Monte Carlo methods. New York, NY: Springer (2003; Zbl 1028.65004)