Discussion Thread -- May 2022 75 Word Writing Challenge

[M. Robert Gibson]

I was really hoping, for the sake of my story, that most were familiar with the infinite monkey theorem.

Thanks for the vote, @Luiglin!

Don't worry, I got the reference

I nearly went with something along those lines, with the punchline being:
To be or not to be, that is the plurgle.

 

[Ursa major]

You are no doubt aware, but others may not be, that you share that US model railway passion with Rod Stewart.

Sir Rod Stewart unveils model railway he worked on for 25 years

The rock star, 74, would book an extra hotel room while on tour so that he could work on his models.

news.sky.com

Yes, I am aware. Indeed somewhere I have a copy of a Model Railroader issue that had a feature article on his model (not the issue referred to in the SKy News article), which is spectacular.

In that article (or perhaps another one, he explained that he built those skyscrapers (with goodness knows how many individual windows in each) in the hotels he stayed in while on tour... which could be a problem when the (real) hotel windows wouldn't open and there were quite a few fumes from the adhesives (and, possibly, the paints) he's was using.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Don't worry, I got the reference

I nearly went with something along those lines, with the punchline being:
To be or not to be, that is the plurgle.

Thanks, but I'm afraid I don't understand the punchline...I'm sure it's something clever, though.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Thanks, but I'm afraid I don't understand the punchline...I'm sure it's something clever, though.

Yeah, it probably needs the set up explaining...
Infinite monkeys, infinite typewriters, expecting works of Shakespeare, excited assistant runs up to overseer waving a manuscript "Sir, sir. We've got Hamlet!"
Overseer reads manuscript "Oh so close, apart from..."

You can see why I didn't go with it

By the way, a few years ago there was an Infinite Monkey Simulator running on the web which I think managed to create something like the first 24 characters from one play. It was written in Flash so is now defunct

It seems there is still a couple more out there

Infinite Monkey Simulator | Tennessine

The infinite monkey theorem: leave a monkey in a room with a typewriter and after an infinite amount of time it will almost certainly have typed the complete works of Shakespeare. This project simulates such a situation, and includes graphs, predictions, and pretty colours.

tennessine.co.uk

 

[Astro Pen]

On the infinite monkeys theme I recommend Borges The Library of Babel.

 

[Parson]

agdgDSdf I do msjaBHJJk.

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.

Okay, I knew that bit. I guess I'd never heard of it as "The infinite monkey theorem." I'd even thought of the monkeys producing the works of William Shakespeare when you said infinite monkey monkey theorem, but I was thinking you meant an infinite number of monkeys so it didn't fit.

**I even doubt infinite time would be enough, there's just too much randomness in the scenario for such a long series of key strokes to happen in just the right order.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

**I even doubt infinite time would be enough, there's just too much randomness in the scenario for such a long series of key strokes to happen in just the right order.

Well, technically the monkeys would indeed randomly produce the works of Shakespeare given enough time. You wouldn't want to be waiting around for them to do it though.

Here is another mind-blowing question. If you gave everyone in the world a pack of cards (the usual 52-card set) and asked that they shuffle them and lay them out one after another, would any two people have a matching sequence? Is it extremely likely or extremely unlikely?

 

[Parson]

Here is another mind-blowing question. If you gave everyone in the world a pack of cards (the usual 52-card set) and asked that they shuffle them and lay them out one after another, would any two people have a matching sequence? Is it extremely likely or extremely unlikely?

I'd say extremely unlikely. I don't have the math expertise, but I suspect that one could calculate this possibility. I'm guessing we would get a figure of 1 in some trillions of that happening.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

You're right. The actual number of combinations is about 8,000,000....55 more zeros....000,000 (written as 1/52!). The probability of two people out of 7 billion getting the same combo is a little more difficult to calculate, but it is still vanishingly small.

 

[Astro Pen]

I think, before making a definitive pronouncement, it is important to know how fast the monkeys can type.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Speed is irrelevant when time is infinite. Be patient!

 

[Mon0Zer0]

"Infinity is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long time waiting for winds of winter, but that's just peanuts compared to infinity."​

 

[Parson]

Or as my granddaughters used to say "Infinity plus One!."

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Did we also know that Apeirophobia is the fear of infinity?

Fear of Infinity Phobia - Apeirophobia

Apeirophobia or the fear of infinity is an extreme phobia about eternal or everlasting things such as life, death etc. No one lives forever, but even the very idea of doing so is extremely scary for…

www.fearof.net

Another attempt of mine was going to be along the lines of someone suffering from Apeirophobia undergoing exposure therapy - the sufferer being exposed to infinite time and the psychiatrist charging by the hour

 

[Elckerlyc]

I did not know it had a name, but fear (or something similar) was at the base of my entry.

 

[Luiglin]

I did not know it had a name, but fear (or something similar) was at the base of my entry.

There's a name for every fear and that's a tale in itself.

 

[Elckerlyc]

That must be a fearsome tale.

 

[therapist]

You're right. The actual number of combinations is about 8,000,000....55 more zeros....000,000 (written as 1/52!). The probability of two people out of 7 billion getting the same combo is a little more difficult to calculate, but it is still vanishingly small.

If you are familiar with the birthday paradox, this chance can be unintuitelvely big, as there are 24 499 999 993 000 000 000 possible combinations of people in a 7 000 000 000 large group.

For example the chances of 2 of the 41 people who entered this challenge sharing a birthday is
1- (365!/(365-41)!/365^41) = 90.3% [this is the same as writting (365/365) * (364/365) * ... (324/365) ]

So there's a 90.3% chance 2 out of us 41 shares a bday.

If we switch out the group size to 7 billion and change the chances from 1/365 to 1/52! we get this simple equation which should give us the chances of 2 people sharing the same 52 card sequence (i'm fairly certain this is correct).
1-((52!)!/(52!-7,000,000,000)!/(52!^7000000000))

Unfortunately I couldn't find a calculator that could accomodate this. But the answer is probably 1 in a stupidly big number.
(Sorry I got carried away here. I like maths.)

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

You could be correct. I got this:

The first person out of 7 billion lays out their 52 cards
The chances of the second person matching is 1/52!
The third person has two chances to match. The prob of a match occurring at this point is 2/52!
The fourth person has three chances to match. Prob 3/52!
The nth person has probability of (n-1) x (1/52!)

And all the above probabilities must be summed to give the final result: the probability that, within a population of 7 billion, there will be a match between the cards of any two:

The result of this summation is still a very small number.

 

[JS Wiig]

Or as my granddaughters used to say "Infinity plus One!."

Yes but what about infinity minus one?