Researchers Tested Whether Infinite Monkeys Could Write Shakespeare, With Actual Monkeys

https://www.iflscience.com ^ | February 11, 2022 | James Felton

[Red Badger]

[rightwingcrazy]

“That took the simulated monkeys 42,162,500,000 billion billion monkey years. The entire works of Shakespeare, it’s fair to say, would take a long time.”

So 42,162,500,000 billion billion monkeys could get it done in just a year. What’s the problem? Infinity is a big number.

[Ken H]

The closest they came was a monkey who typed, “To be or not to be, that is the grzzbryt!

[cdcdawg]

I thought this was going to be an explanation for the final season of Game of Thrones. I guess it still could be.

[Huskrrrr]

They could write for CNN.

[Seruzawa]

Who pays these charlatans’ paychecks?

[Red Badger]

Monkeys.................

[ifinnegan]

Idiocy. And not science.

[Stosh]

I thought I read somewhere somebody actually gave a bunch of monkeys a bunch of typewriters, and what they got was mostly monkeys defecating all over the typewriters, and when they actually did any typing, what they mostly produced was strings of the same letter over and over again.

[mmichaels1970]

And there is a finite number of 5 minute songs that can be played on a piano.

[I want the USA back]

You cannot amass an infinite number of anything. You cannot reach the end of an infinite series, because that’s what infinite means.

The monkeys would not be typing every combination of every letter, punctuation mark, and number. They would be hitting keys with no particular goal, at random.

Better to write a program to type every possible combination. For a page of text, it would take longer than the expected life of the universe, so get going! But it would be an easy program to write. However, once you start it, don’t hang around waiting for it to end. Will it actually create the works of Shakespeare? We’ll never know, because there is no way to ever reach the end of an infinite series.

[cgbg]

I am sure if we spent a few trillion dollars on monkey education they could get it done—after all, they share most of our DNA code.

;-)

[Red Badger]

Infinite wisdom.....................

[mmichaels1970]

I like your explanation. These are the things I usually rely on Michio Kaku to break down for me.

[HIDEK6]

Bob Newhart had a bit where he played a researcher doing this very thing.

[Covenantor]

WTH? Virtual monkeys?
Two years of quarantine without a job and now this?

[HIDEK6]

Plagiarized from Bob Newhart.

[Yollopoliuhqui]

At least we know that this universe is possible. I bumped my head against it yesterday.

[Mr. Lucky]

Well, did you know that Chuck Norris has counted to infinity?

Twice.

[mmichaels1970]

At least we know that this universe is possible. I bumped my head against it yesterday.

Yes. And the universe is so big, isn't it possible that there's already a monkey out there who's done this?