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An Infinite Number Of Monkeys...

Andy X

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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.
 
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An example fairly-detailed estimate (see this link ) appears to put the timescale as being
"about 1.1×10 ^8453721 years" (my interpretation of that estimate is that this is how long it would take just one monkey, typing at 100wpm).

But this needs to be viewed within the context of our sun going supernova, which is predicted to happen in just 10^9 years, so increasing the quantity of monkey keyboard operators would be recommended.

There are quite a few such calculation attempts available: they are interesting as examples of extreme stats-porn, but all are frustratingly-impenetrable as to their absolute (or indeed relative) accuracy.

(EDIT- I just realised an intriguing coincidence.....we all know that the archetypical scribe is a monk. And we have become collectively-convinced of the challenging concept of monkey scribes achieving a result from this infinite challenge.

Capuchin monks and capuchin monkeys would probably both benefit from a lot of cappuchino coffee, to keep them awake during their task)
 
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It would be generated instantly. (I am of course fully qualified in advanced mathematics having listened to Professor Brian Cox on a podcast a few days ago). If there is an INFINITE number of monkeys who start simultaneously, then somewhere in that infinite expanse of clashing keys, Shakespeares portfolio would be produced almost instantly.

Finding it would be the problem. And dealing with all the monkey shit.
 
It would be generated instantly. (I am of course fully qualified in advanced mathematics having listened to Professor Brian Cox on a podcast a few days ago). If there is an INFINITE number of monkeys who start simultaneously, then somewhere in that infinite expanse of clashing keys, Shakespeares portfolio would be produced almost instantly.

Finding it would be the problem. And dealing with all the monkey shit.

Agreed. The accepted answer to this conundrum is "infinitely quickly".
 
I’ve already mentioned this on another thread but through evolution, Shakespeare has already written The Complete Works - and he did it with a feather.

If he were around today and used an iPad (complete with Apple's auto -corrupt misspelling function) he would have written "The Timing of the Show" , "A Mid Seaman's Night Dram" , "The Mermaid of Venus" and "Muck Bath" (aka "The Skittish Ploy" ).
 
Agreed. The accepted answer to this conundrum is "infinitely quickly".
Well...if a value can be estimated as to the effort-quotient in terms of monkey-years for one monkey (which I propse we call a Shakespeare-Cappuccino....that sounds like an '80s New Romantic band from Manchester):

....then it could be allocated to 1.1×10 ^8453721 monkeys who would take one year.....or, 3.4x10^8453728 monkeys to complete the task collectively in just under one second.

But as pointed-out above...that is one hell of a lot of monkey-sh!t
 
As is all too often the case, the devil is in the detail, and the original claim is very short on detail: how do you define "produce the entire works of Shakespeare"? One word at a time? Two? Whole sentences? Whole acts? Entire plays? If monkeys are as hopeless at typing as seems to be the case, we would be lucky to get any recognisable words at all, and if we searched through millions of these we could, no doubt, combine them to reproduce the plays. But the whole exercise seems pointless.
As a slightly more interesting angle, I seem to recall Fred Hoyle in his Intelligent Universe discussing the claim that life evolved on the Earth in the primordial soup, and showing (to his satisfaction, anyway) that even if the entire universe consisted of said soup there is only a 50-50 chance of a reproducing living cell having been formed since the Big Bang.
To widen this further, it is really a reflection of the conflict between the concept of an organised, intelligent (or intelligently designed) universe and a universe made up of just lots of random processes.
 
Thanks all.

I was falling asleep and didn't actually bother checking if anyone had made a serious attempt to work this out, but indeed my feeling was that their literary triumph could be almost instantaneous, and yet ...

how do you define "produce the entire works of Shakespeare"? One word at a time? Two? Whole sentences? Whole acts? Entire plays?

Exactly, but I'm sure whoever dreamt up the idea was merely trying to convey the concept of infinity.

An example fairly-detailed estimate (see this link ) appears to put the timescale as being
"about 1.1×10 ^8453721 years" (my interpretation of that estimate is that this is how long it would take just one monkey, typing at 100wpm).

Aye, there's the rub: we'd need infinite copies of Mavis Beacon before we even got started.

Unfortunately the creatures would also have produced every Jeffrey Archer and Celebrity 'autobiography', an infinite number of original works and an infinite quantity of gibberish, presumably.

And yes, the mess would be appalling.
 

Interesting - this page purports to enumerate the Shakey works already completed by mere millions of 'monkey' software agents - but wouldn't they be also churning out Cicero, Hemingway, Andy McNab and the 1972 Sheffield telephone directory?

I'll need to look at Jesse Anderson's site again and then get an infinite number of monkeys to explain it to me.
 
It's been done. It's called Facebook/Twitter.

. . . and, yes, most of it is monkey shit.
That explains a lot! Obviously all of the profile pictures are faked. I must warn my wife about her involvement with Facebook, I have always felt uneasy about it.
 
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