A new study reveals it would take far longer than the lifespan of our universe for a typing monkey to randomly produce Shakespeare. So, while the Infinite Monkey Theorem is true, it is also somewhat misleading.
The question that everyone has been dying to know has been answered. Finally! What will scientists study next?
If there were as many monkeys as there are atoms in the observable universe typing extremely fast for trillions of times the life of the universe, the probability of the monkeys replicating even a single page of Shakespeare is unfathomably small.
Sorry, I’m sort of lampooning comments like the one above and below you where people just can’t resist focusing on the possibility, no matter how ridiculously remote it seems. For myself, there’s a point of “functionally zero odds” that I’m willing to accept and move on with my life.
Yeah, that’s why we need at least… two of them.
the paper used the entire population (200 thousand) and would take some 10 ^ 10 ^ 7 heat deaths of the universe
It could happen the very first time a monkey sat down at a typewriter. It’s just very unlikely.
from the wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem
Weird how neither of those numbers are infinities. Almost like the numbers used are unfathomably small in comparison.
But not zero.
Basically nothing is ever truly zero
Someone wiser than me already said that it already has happened: 1 ape did, in fact, write the complete works of Shakespeare.
ape != monkey
Apes are monkeys though, just like we’re apes and birds are dinosaurs
Fair enough. I wouldn’t want to insult the Librarian.
I am.
So you’re telling me… there’s a chance!
Sorry, I’m sort of lampooning comments like the one above and below you where people just can’t resist focusing on the possibility, no matter how ridiculously remote it seems. For myself, there’s a point of “functionally zero odds” that I’m willing to accept and move on with my life.
so you’re saying there’s a chance…
ok so the monkeys need to type faster
And we need more of them!
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1008x567/p0gyfc9x.jpg
We could breed monkeys to much higher populations.
If we’re considering even chimps “monkeys”, there’s already eight billion of them, I think that’s enough.