Andy X
AWOL
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2014
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- 3,195
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A quick question for you statisticians / mathematicians / simian literature experts out there:
I'll admit to not having thought about this very deeply ( or at all ); it's just a query that that's popped into my head to prevent me sleeping, as such thoughts often do, bah.
Assuming we have the starting conditions for the thought experiment with the infinite monkeys with their infinite typewriters - like what we used to have - and assuming unlimited ribbons and 3-in-1 oil and an awful lot of monkey coffee, how long might it take them to produce, for example, the compete works of Shakespeare (with all the pages in the right order)?
Would this be achieved fairly quickly, or would it take them an infinite amount of time (if there is such a thing) ... or what?
Of course you'd need an infinite amount of space for the monkeys to work in which would make collating the pages tricky. I realise this is an exercise in probability with no possible proof which could never be carried out in a physical environment (unless there are parallel monkeyverses and some sort of quantum computer on the job), but still... I'm tired and this may be a very misguided avenue of enquiry.
Answers on an infinite number of postcards, pls. Ta.
I'll admit to not having thought about this very deeply ( or at all ); it's just a query that that's popped into my head to prevent me sleeping, as such thoughts often do, bah.
Assuming we have the starting conditions for the thought experiment with the infinite monkeys with their infinite typewriters - like what we used to have - and assuming unlimited ribbons and 3-in-1 oil and an awful lot of monkey coffee, how long might it take them to produce, for example, the compete works of Shakespeare (with all the pages in the right order)?
Would this be achieved fairly quickly, or would it take them an infinite amount of time (if there is such a thing) ... or what?
Of course you'd need an infinite amount of space for the monkeys to work in which would make collating the pages tricky. I realise this is an exercise in probability with no possible proof which could never be carried out in a physical environment (unless there are parallel monkeyverses and some sort of quantum computer on the job), but still... I'm tired and this may be a very misguided avenue of enquiry.
Answers on an infinite number of postcards, pls. Ta.
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