My Single Favorite Line Of Javascript

Math.random() unleashes serendipity and weirdness

Clive Thompson
Debugger
Published in
5 min readMar 6, 2022

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A few years ago, someone on Quora asked “What’s the most powerful line of code ever written?”

The answers were pretty fun, and most were the ones you’d expect (if you’re a developer, anyway). Some folks praised the while and for loops, since they’re cornerstones of how get computers to do…

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Clive Thompson
Debugger

I write 2X a week on tech, science, culture — and how those collide. Writer at NYT mag/Wired; author, “Coders”. @clive@saturation.social clive@clivethompson.net