Showing posts with label infinite monkey theorem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infinite monkey theorem. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

A million monkeys at a million typewriters

Five years ago, researchers at Paignton Zoo in England gave six Sulawesi crested macaque monkeys a computer for four weeks to see what they would do.

Mathematicians assure us that given time, those monkeys eventually would produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. They even have a name for this. It's called the Infinite Monkey Theorem.

These monkeys didn't deliver the goods. Shakespeare remains unduplicated.

Instead, you will note that they produced a copy of "Jane Eyre" in just under 10 minutes. (Well, not really. They produced pages of the letter S, which is still an improvement over Bronte's book.)