Robert Coveyou

Robert R. Coveyou (February 9, 1915 – February 19, 1996) was an American research mathematician who worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He also taught mathematics part-time for several years at Knoxville College and worked at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, while on leave from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1968 until 1971.

An expert on pseudo-random number generators, today he is probably best known for the title of an article published around 1970: "Random Number Generation is too Important to be Left to Chance".

Coveyou was an original member of the small group of radiation protection specialists at the University of Chicago assembled under the leadership of Ernest O. Wollan in 1942/43 and moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee as part of the Manhattan Project. The school operated from 1950 until Oak Ridge High School was desegregated in the fall of 1955.