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?
I think the point is less about any kind of route to Hamlet, and more about the absurdity of infinite tries in a finite space(time). There are a finite (but extremely large) number of configurations of English characters in a work the length of Hamlet. If you have truly an infinite number of attempts (monkeys, time, or both are actually infinite) and the trials are all truly random (every character is guaranteed to have the same chance as every other) then you will necessarily arrive at that configuration eventually.
As far as your process, of procedurally generating each letter one by one until you have the completed works, we actually have a monkey who more or less did that already. His name is William.
Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes. Thus monkeys, in that sense, constitute an incomplete paraphyletic grouping; however, in the broader sense based on cladistics, apes (Hominoidea) are also included, making the terms monkeys and simians synonyms in regard to their scope.
Oh neat. This is all taxonomy that is well beyond me. My defense of calling humans monkeys is that everyone does it, and that’s how language works. Glad to know I’m correct too, technically lol
Among other problems, this fails to account for non-typing activities performed by the monkey, such as damaging the typewriter or attacking the researcher.
285 years increases to a few thousand if you alarmingly frequently have to clean the contents of a monkey’s colon out of a typewriter.
And at some point you’d want to further “refine” your selection process by “repairing” the typewriter to have fewer keys and/or causing the typewriter to jam after the required key press. Monkeys like to press the same key over and over again. Good luck getting them to stop once they’ve pressed a key once.
TL;DR monkeys are chaos, and this will not be easy.
This changes the rules though from check at the end to check at every letter. That’s where the real efficiency gain is… The insertion of an all knowing checker who could have written it himself anyway. The math of permutations vs combinations changes drastically if we change the rules.
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I think the point is less about any kind of route to Hamlet, and more about the absurdity of infinite tries in a finite space(time). There are a finite (but extremely large) number of configurations of English characters in a work the length of Hamlet. If you have truly an infinite number of attempts (monkeys, time, or both are actually infinite) and the trials are all truly random (every character is guaranteed to have the same chance as every other) then you will necessarily arrive at that configuration eventually.
As far as your process, of procedurally generating each letter one by one until you have the completed works, we actually have a monkey who more or less did that already. His name is William.
???
Ol Bill Shakespeare. He wrote Hamlet, one correct letter at a time.
Humans are apes, apes are monkeys, paraphyletic groups are bullshit.
To be entirely fair, apes aren’t monkeys. I don’t think that particular distinction is really all that relevant to the discussion, but technically…
From wikipedia:
Oh neat. This is all taxonomy that is well beyond me. My defense of calling humans monkeys is that everyone does it, and that’s how language works. Glad to know I’m correct too, technically lol
Username checks out.
isnt that a misconception? apes just share a common ancestor with us
Well. technically he was an ape rather than a monkey.
Technically true, I think it still fits for the layman.
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You either spend your life really well or you have way too much time on your hands.
Either way I read your post with happy curiosity. 🙂
I feel like you might have interviewed for Google in the late 2000s
Among other problems, this fails to account for non-typing activities performed by the monkey, such as damaging the typewriter or attacking the researcher.
285 years increases to a few thousand if you alarmingly frequently have to clean the contents of a monkey’s colon out of a typewriter.
And at some point you’d want to further “refine” your selection process by “repairing” the typewriter to have fewer keys and/or causing the typewriter to jam after the required key press. Monkeys like to press the same key over and over again. Good luck getting them to stop once they’ve pressed a key once.
TL;DR monkeys are chaos, and this will not be easy.
This changes the rules though from check at the end to check at every letter. That’s where the real efficiency gain is… The insertion of an all knowing checker who could have written it himself anyway. The math of permutations vs combinations changes drastically if we change the rules.
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