The (In)finite Monkey Theorem

Elckerlyc

Elckerlyc

"Philosophy will clip an angel's wings."
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An infinite number of monkeys given enough (=infinite) Time can eventually reproduce a Shakespearean play by randomly striking keys on a keyboard. But what if you replace 'infinite' with the finite number of monkeys there are in the world and 'infinity' with the expected lifespan of the universe?
A published thought experiment.
 
Elckerlyc said:
An infinite number of monkeys given enough (=infinite) Time can eventually reproduce a Shakespearean play by randomly striking keys on a keyboard. But what if you replace 'infinite' with the finite number of monkeys there are in the world and 'infinity' with the expected lifespan of the universe?
A published thought experiment.
Click to expand...


A fine candidate for the Ignoble Award.
 
In R A Lafferty's short story"Been a Long, Long Time", a hapless immortal called Boshel accidentally introduces randomness into the newly created universe. His punishment is to test the theory that a team of monkeys typing at random could eventually produce the works of Shakespeare... In real time.

The archangel Michael provides a clock - a stone cube light-years across:

"'You don't have to wind it, you don't have to do a thing to it, Bosh,' Michael explained. 'A small bird will come every millennium and sharpen its beak on the stone. You can tell the passing of time by the diminishing of the stone. It's a good clock and it has only one moving part, the bird ...'"

The task is still incomplete when the stone has worn away enough to accommodate a small solar system ...
 
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The Simpsons episode Last Exit to Springfield Mr Brind had and army of monkey hard at work tying all the great books of literature .:D
 
Elckerlyc said:
An infinite number of monkeys given enough (=infinite) Time can eventually reproduce a Shakespearean play by randomly striking keys on a keyboard. But what if you replace 'infinite' with the finite number of monkeys there are in the world and 'infinity' with the expected lifespan of the universe?
A published thought experiment.
Click to expand...

If you increased the number of monkeys to an infinite number , the monkeys would very quickly run out of story ideas because the number of original and story ideas and an finite and fixed number. :unsure:
 
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Danny McG said:
You never watched Planet of the Apes?
Keep them busy typing and they'd never have time to organise against humans.
Click to expand...

Has everyone so soon forgotten the legendary exploits of Lancelot Link Secret Chimp? ;)
 
I forgot to mention that Lancelot Link is also a gourmet chef and is part of the rock band The Evolution Revolution in his off duty hours.;)
 
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Should I also bring DC Comics Detective Chimp who's way smarter than Sherlock Holmes and Batman put together ? ;)
 
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I've always thought it was an infinite number of monkeys and not just on...
 
There is an excellent short story (for it's time) by Lin Carter, Uncollected Works that I read in World's Best Science Fiction: 1966. ed. by Wollheim & Carr. It takes the idea and puts an 11 page spin on it.
 
Elckerlyc said:
An infinite number of monkeys given enough (=infinite) Time can eventually reproduce a Shakespearean play by randomly striking keys on a keyboard. But what if you replace 'infinite' with the finite number of monkeys there are in the world and 'infinity' with the expected lifespan of the universe?
A published thought experiment.
Click to expand...

If we're going with expected lifespan of the universe, the number of monkeys on the planet right now doesn't seem relevant. After all, Earth is only going to be habitable for another billion-ish years or so. What if instead we convert the entire mass of the universe into monkeys?

Edit: monkeys+typewriters, silly me
 
Ori Vandewalle said:
If we're going with expected lifespan of the universe, the number of monkeys on the planet right now doesn't seem relevant. After all, Earth is only going to be habitable for another billion-ish years or so. What if instead we convert the entire mass of the universe into monkeys?

Edit: monkeys+typewriters, silly me
Click to expand...
Still, someone has to feed the monkeys. And does it also require paper or can we assume they are simply typing on the rollers like simian versions of Leon Trout, the Narrator from Vonnegut's novel, Galapagos.
 
Of course! Very important considerations!

But looking over the paper, none of it really matters. Mass of all matter in the observable universe is something like 1e53 kg. Average chimp mass is maybe 50 kg, but let's just call it 100 kg if you include typewriter and paper and food and whatever else, because that makes the math easier and it doesn't change the results. So you've got 1e51 chimps.

They give the odds of 200,000 chimps (world population) producing all the works of Shakespeare before the heat death of the universe as 6.4e-7448254. With 1e51 chimps instead, it's... 3.2e-7448208. Which is still ridiculously, laughably, mind-bogglingly, far past astronomically unlikely.
 
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