how to generate random numbers that satisfy certain distribution

[Peter Chant]

thinke365 wrote:

> 
> such as uniform distribution, Normal distribution or poisson distribution.
> is there any package that can be used to generate such random numbers.
> 

I remeber being told that adding up 12 random numbers in the range 0-1 
(which is what most computer random number genertors at the time chucked 
out) and subtracted 6 gives a pretty good normal distribution.  I think I 
did try it once and it failed, but I must have done something odd.

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