Abstract
The equilibrium properties of the two-dimensional Ising model with nearest-neighbour interactions uniformly distributed between -J and J have been determined using a numerical transfer matrix method. The calculations are performed on a long strip of width L(3<or=L<or=11) with periodic boundary conditions and finite-size scaling arguments are used to extrapolate to L= infinity . The spin-glass correlation length diverges as T- nu at low temperature with nu =2.96+or-0.22. The correlation length scaling function differs from that for the random Ising model with interactions of magnitude J and random sign showing that the two models with different distribution functions belong to different universality classes. The heat capacity is linear at low temperature and can be interpreted using a continuous distribution of two-level states which is finite at zero energy and increases approximately linearly with energy. At zero temperature the entropy is zero and the internal energy extrapolated to L= infinity is -(0.7943+or-0.0010)J.