Posted on 11/02/2024 12:41:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Two Australian mathematicians have called into question an old adage, that if given an infinite amount of time, a monkey pressing keys on a typewriter would eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Known as the "infinite monkey theorem", the thought-experiment has long been used to explain the principles of probability and randomness.
However, a new peer-reviewed study led by Sydney-based researchers Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta has found that the time it would take for a typing monkey to replicate Shakespeare's plays, sonnets and poems would be longer than the lifespan of our universe.
Which means that while mathematically true, the theorem is "misleading", they say.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
But they could still fly out of my butt.
I can see the monkeys type Cardenio, and the researchers say, "No, this is not Shakespeare."
If the dream of the monkeys typing Shakespeare is over what about e e cummings?
What a bunch of wet noodles. Infinite is, in fact, longer than the lifespan of the universe. This is hair-splitting for clicks. Bah Humbug!
Nor will the illegal invaders. But they will go all Allahu Akbar on your neck. Cultural enrichment.
But a monkey typing is not some kind of random letter generator. I don’t think monkeys would ever manage the dexterity and intent to even type once complete sentence.
But maybe Boyce & Hart?
Whoever believed they would? Has anyone read Swift’s “Voyage to Laputa”? It’s the third of Gulliver’s Travels. It skewers the academy and all their hairbrained ideas.
42.
I don’t think they will either...
In the truly superb X Files spinoff series The Lone Gunmen (which in their total stupidity the American people gave low ratings and caused the network to cancel it) an episode had the chimps at desktop computers and one writing high quality pieces.
The Gunmen receive an email for help from a ‘slave’ subjected to secret government tests. The slave turns out to be a superintelligent chimp called Peanuts.
Episode Planet of the Frohikes.
Here is a screenshot of the chimps typing away.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0635315/
Monkees factoid.
Stephen Stills auditioned as a Monkee but the bosses rejected him due to his badly aligned teeth.
Did they get a govt grant to solve this problem?
And yet there are fools (“educated fools”) who believe our entire DNA sequence which is far, far, far, far more complex than all of Shakespeare’s works, happened randomly.
IF I live long enough for monkeys to fly out of my butt I’m hoping for a proctologist that is under 10,000 years old to do the repair surgery that will be necessary.
Good point.
No idea if this is true or not, but I read once somebody actually gave a bunch of monkeys a set of typewriters and set them at it, and they mostly typed our long strings of the same letters - and for good measure they also defecated on those devices as well.
Give a monkey a typewriter and it won’t type. It’ll throw it around and pee and poop on it, but it won’t type.
“Known as the “infinite monkey theorem”, the thought-experiment has long been used to explain the principles of probability and randomness.”
I always thought it had been long used to justify the origin of life and evolution.
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