Monkeys will never type Shakespeare

[phuketrichard]

personally , never thought they could

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.

The results indicated that even if every chimp in the world was enlisted and able to type at a pace of one key per second until the end of the universe, they wouldn't even come close to typing out the Bard's works.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c748k ... =editorial

[Spigzy]

Oh, so these "scientists" know the "lifespan of our universe" now eh?



"As well as a single monkey, they also did the calculations using the current global population of around 200,000 chimpanzees, and they assumed a rather productive typing speed of one key every second until the end of the universe in about 10^100 years -- that's a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

The results reveal that it is possible (around a 5% chance) for a single chimp to type the word 'bananas' in its own lifetime."

Here are the two monkey "scientists" that have never worked a day in their life, making crap use of your tax ...

Dr. Stephen Woodcock but no women are interested


Dr. Jay Falletta about as close to fellatio as he'll ever get



(Have a great weekend CEOers )

[Alex]

In fairness, it would take the average human about as much time as the average ape.

[Bluenose]

Just because a specific outcome only happens once in a billion times doesn't mean that outcome will only happen the billionth time you do it.

[John Bingham]

Does it take into account that the chimps evolve or not? Even if they became really intelligent it seems unlikely that they'd ever replicate a work of Shakespeare. Just as an example-

The number of legal board positions in Go has been calculated to be approximately 2.1×10170, which is far greater than the number of atoms in the observable universe, which is estimated to be on the order of 1080.

[John Bingham]

Oh, so these "scientists" know the "lifespan of our universe" now eh?



"As well as a single monkey, they also did the calculations using the current global population of around 200,000 chimpanzees, and they assumed a rather productive typing speed of one key every second until the end of the universe in about 10^100 years -- that's a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

The results reveal that it is possible (around a 5% chance) for a single chimp to type the word 'bananas' in its own lifetime."

Here are the two monkey "scientists" that have never worked a day in their life, making crap use of your tax ...


(Have a great weekend CEOers )

They are clueless too.

“It is not plausible that, even with improved typing speeds or an increase in chimpanzee populations, monkey labour will ever be a viable tool for developing non-trivial written works,” the study says.

I'm no scientist but I know chimpanzees are not monkeys.

[IraHayes]

Does it take into account that the chimps evolve or not? Even if they became really intelligent it seems unlikely that they'd ever replicate a work of Shakespeare.

Given chimps and humans evolved from a common ancestor the chance they could evolve further (a few million years at least) to match our abilities is actually quite possible.

edit to add:
Taking the life of the universe to be 10^100 seemed a little low to me and if protons dont decay it could be a lot longer ... 10^10^76 is the upper limit of the life of an Iron (Fe-56) star.

[newkidontheblock]

That’s a lot of assumptions.

Is that just a monkey randomly hitting a key, or actually copying a written work of William Shakespeare?

Repeatedly hitting a single key, even mice have been trained to do that. Hit a big key, get a reward. But to copy means understanding writing and typing and then replicating. Humans take years and lots of schooling to do so.

How long did it take William Shakespeare to create his works? His entire life.

Interesting thought question. Just like could a chimp write literature given an infinite time span. It’s an evolution question.

People evolved from chimps, then lost most of the chimp qualities.

[Random Dude]

That’s a lot of assumptions.

Is that just a monkey randomly hitting a key, or actually copying a written work of William Shakespeare?

Repeatedly hitting a single key, even mice have been trained to do that. Hit a big key, get a reward. But to copy means understanding writing and typing and then replicating. Humans take years and lots of schooling to do so.

How long did it take William Shakespeare to create his works? His entire life.

Interesting thought question. Just like could a chimp write literature given an infinite time span. It’s an evolution question.

People evolved from chimps, then lost most of the chimp qualities.

I 'think' (but don't quote me on it) that the theory was always based on monkeys hitting random keys until one of them produced the book.

Here's another interesting - at least to me - thought question. They scraped out Shakespeare's pipe a while back, and it seems he liked to rip a bowl while writing. I wonder, if someone provided monkeys with typewriters, weed, and maybe the occasional mushroom trip, would they produce the book faster? Or maybe even come up with something better?

My guess would be, yes.

[Freightdog]

Wasn’t this experiment done on a simpler scale, using a 2D pattern of different coloured balls, which once disturbed, and frequently disturbed, should have the possibility of replicating the exact original pattern sometime, but astronomically high chances against us still existing as a species if it ever did occur?

Or something like that…