I know it's an old cookie, but i was thinking recently about the old question; would a monkey typing at random for infinity produce the works of Shakespeare? Infinity is a tricky concept, but it is an interesting example to think about.

So yes what are your thoughts? (I've attached a poll to give some general options)

Does the monkey type randomly?

Does that make a difference?

How on earth is this is a philosophy question? There is a mathematics section, you know.

I doubt it. It's more likely to bash keys that knock Word off than type out Shakespeare.

Kid A wrote:I know it's an old cookie, but i was thinking recently about the old question; would a monkey typing at random for infinity produce the works of Shakespeare? Infinity is a tricky concept, but it is an interesting example to think about.

So yes what are your thoughts? (I've attached a poll to give some general options)

It wouldn't take infinity for the monkey to produce the works of the bard....Just a very, very long time.

However, if we had an infinite number of monkeys, it'd take no time at all..

Some nutter did the maths.

http://www.nutters.org/docs/monkeys

natselrox wrote:Some nutter did the maths.

http://www.nutters.org/docs/monkeys

Saves me the job!

It's raining ... er..cats* and dogs here, so I can't get into the garden to do maintenance (tree branches need sawing off). I was going to calculate the probabilities instead......might do it anyway for the geek credits.




* none of them were harmed...

10 geek points for that.

natselrox wrote:10 geek points for that.

I thought that there was an infinite number of key combinations so how the fuck could they ever type out Shakespeare or anything like it?

Animavore wrote:I thought that there was an infinite number of key combinations so how the fuck could they ever type out Shakespeare or anything like it?

I don't think there could be an infinite number of combo's.

Consider the british national lottery. You have to pick 6 numbers from a choice of 49.
For the monkey writing shakespeare, he has to pick x thousand characters from a choice of about 60 (if you include capitals).

edit - In both cases there are only a finite number of combinations

Each character can be one of 26 choices. Include the punctuations and spaces....


I'm soooooooo not doing this.

campermon wrote:

Animavore wrote:I thought that there was an infinite number of key combinations so how the fuck could they ever type out Shakespeare or anything like it?

I don't think there could be an infinite number of combo's.

Consider the british national lottery. You have to pick 6 numbers from a choice of 49.
For the monkey writing shakespeare, he has to pick x thousand characters from a choice of about 60 (if you include capitals).

But in the lottery the same numbers can't come out twice.
With a keyboard you have letters and symbols and a space bar which can be hit any number of times in any order. I severely doubt a monkey bashing away at keys would ever get the complete works of Shakespeare. They'd get something like this.


iqeuhtuf24hfa;vnvgoj, for infinity (I stopped there because I hit a key which made it scroll down to the bottom of the screen very quickly, another problem for the monkey).

Oh no no ani. Let's simplify this. What is the probability that a monkey playing with a mobile phone will type the number 6592?

If he is allowed to type only 4 digits, then the probability is 1 in 10000. Same with the complete works of Shakespeare.

natselrox wrote:Oh no no ani. Let's simplify this. What is the probability that a monkey playing with a mobile phone will type the number 6592?

If he is allowed to type only 4 digits, then the probability is 1 in 10000. Same with the complete works of Shakespeare.

I don't buy that. How you going to stop the problem of the monkey pressing ESC or the Window key...etc and knocking it off Word altogether? Or getting lost in the functions of Word?

Kid A wrote:I know it's an old cookie, but i was thinking recently about the old question; would a monkey typing at random for infinity produce the works of Shakespeare?

The probability of this happening is 1, but nonetheless it needn't happen.

Animavore wrote:

natselrox wrote:Oh no no ani. Let's simplify this. What is the probability that a monkey playing with a mobile phone will type the number 6592?

If he is allowed to type only 4 digits, then the probability is 1 in 10000. Same with the complete works of Shakespeare.

I don't buy that. How you going to stop the problem of the monkey pressing ESC or the Window key...etc and knocking it off Word altogether? Or getting lost in the functions of Word?

I think you are joking.

natselrox wrote:

Animavore wrote:

natselrox wrote:Oh no no ani. Let's simplify this. What is the probability that a monkey playing with a mobile phone will type the number 6592?

If he is allowed to type only 4 digits, then the probability is 1 in 10000. Same with the complete works of Shakespeare.

I don't buy that. How you going to stop the problem of the monkey pressing ESC or the Window key...etc and knocking it off Word altogether? Or getting lost in the functions of Word?

I think you are joking.

Did you see my example above? Did you see how long it took, mashing the keyboard, before I hit something that knocked it off?

Animavore wrote:

campermon wrote:

Animavore wrote:I thought that there was an infinite number of key combinations so how the fuck could they ever type out Shakespeare or anything like it?

I don't think there could be an infinite number of combo's.

Consider the british national lottery. You have to pick 6 numbers from a choice of 49.
For the monkey writing shakespeare, he has to pick x thousand characters from a choice of about 60 (if you include capitals).

But in the lottery the same numbers can't come out twice.
With a keyboard you have letters and symbols and a space bar which can be hit any number of times in any order. I severely doubt a monkey bashing away at keys would ever get the complete works of Shakespeare. They'd get something like this.


iqeuhtuf24hfa;vnvgoj, for infinity (I stopped there because I hit a key which made it scroll down to the bottom of the screen very quickly, another problem for the monkey).

I'm going to have to go away and think about this.....

Animavore wrote:

natselrox wrote:

Animavore wrote:

natselrox wrote:Oh no no ani. Let's simplify this. What is the probability that a monkey playing with a mobile phone will type the number 6592?

If he is allowed to type only 4 digits, then the probability is 1 in 10000. Same with the complete works of Shakespeare.

I don't buy that. How you going to stop the problem of the monkey pressing ESC or the Window key...etc and knocking it off Word altogether? Or getting lost in the functions of Word?

I think you are joking.

Did you see my example above? Did you see how long it took, mashing the keyboard, before I hit something that knocked it off?

That key is just one of the many keys and as usual a lot of possible combinations exist where the monkey won'y be touching that key at all.