2mo ago

Typing monkey would be unable to produce 'Hamlet' within the lifetime of the universe, study finds

phys.org Typing monkey would be unable to produce 'Hamlet' within the lifetime of the universe, study finds

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?

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191 comments

This is clownery, humanity is infinite monkeys, and we wrote Hamlet ages ago.
- Are they arguing it wasn't random though? I mean Shakespeare had to think through the plot and everything, not just scribble nonsense on a page
  
  The thought experiment suggests that over a long enough period of time, every possible combination of letters would be typed out on a keyboard, including Hamlet.
  They are not arguing about randomness, as it is inherent to the thought experiment. Randomness is necessary for the experiment to occur.
  They are arguing that the universe would be dead before the time criteria is met. It is a bitter and sarcastic conclusion to the thought experiment, and is supposed to be funny.
  In conversation, it would be delivered like this:
  "You know, over a long enough period of time, monkeys smashing typewriters randomly would eventually produce Hamlet"
  "The universe isn't going to last that long."
  
  Nobody asked but I had to share this
  It's important to me that everyone understands the joke, even if that understanding robs them of the joy of it. "Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. It kills it".
  But it's important because I suffered a lot of being left out as a kid. Others found how good it felt to be exclusive, and shoulder me out of things, or refuse to explain things, or whatever it was that made me the outcast. I could tell from their faces that they love the way it felt when they did that to me. But it hurt me a lot.
  I don't want there to be any exclusivity anymore. Nobody deserves that pain. I want everyone to understand the joke, even if that prevents them from ever laughing at it.
- Everyone keeps forgetting that we're all just what monkeys evolved into...
  
  Actually, both monkeys and us are what our common ancestors evolved into. Which was neither a human nor a monkey.

191 comments