Monkeys Writing Shakespeare...

[Ohtrux]

I don't know why this popped in my head today...
I was thinking about this theory that I heard a while ago.
I don't remember it exactly, but it goes something like: If you get a bunch of monkeys together and you give them all scraps of paper with words on them, (assuming the monkeys just don't eat the liitle scraps of paper) eventually, they will arrange the words into the complete works of Shakespeare.
Now, I'm not sure if this is exactly how this theory goes, so don't flame me about it, just correct me if I'm wrong.
Knowing what we do about the intelligence of monkeys, and the fact that they are able to manipulate objects much like humans do, the question I would put to you all is this:

Do you think it's possible, that, given the right conditions, a bunch of monkeys could form the works of Shakespeare?

[Larn Lobos]

The theory is simply a law of probability. I believe the theory is actually a monkey with a typewriter, hitting random keys, has a theoretical probability of eventually producing the complete works of Shakespeare, simply by chance.

Larn "Showoff!" Lobos

[Leopa Panthera]

The single rule about polls is that if you put up a sarcastic option in a guild full of sarcastic people, you're never gonna get a serious answer!

[Larn Lobos]

Who's being sarcastic? *bewildered*


Larn

[Ohtrux]

Got 2 seriuos answers...
AND I learned something...

[Rikkie175]

A bunch of monkeys on a typewriter could never write even a single work of shakepeare..

Think about it: there are about 30 possible keys ( 26 letters, space comma and dot, question mark and exlamation mark) . So if a monkey hits one key, he has a chance of 1/30 that he hits the right one.. how many letters does a work of shakespeare contain? 10000? then the chance that a monkey could come up with it is 1/30 times 1/30 times 1/30 and so on 10000 times.. that chance is SO small, that the universe is not big enough to contain the amount of monkeys it would take to come up with a work of shakespeare..


I don't usually type this much, I'm feeling energetic today ">

[Rikkie175]

[Larn Lobos]

Just to throw it in perspective here...

Using your computation of 30 keys on the keyboard, we're going to get the monkeys to type out just the title of Hamlet.

They have a one in 30 chance of hitting the H key (we'll assume capitalization doesn't count). After that, a 1 in 30 chance of hitting the A key. 30 x 30 is 900, so they've a 1 in 900 chance of getting the HA combination.

Follow it to it's logical conclusion. HAMLET. 6 Letters. 30 to the power of 6.

Out of 729 MILLION monkeys, there is a statistical probability that ONE of them will type out the word "Hamlet".

Taking it a step further, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" would have a statiscal probability of approximately ONE in 8.4792x10^36. (For those that don't know scientific notation, that means 8.4792, moving the decimal to the rigth 36 places....). That translates to be about ONE in 850 duodecillion. For twenty-five characters.

Yeah, I have no life....I live to figure this shit out. ">

Who wants to figure the odds for an entire play. ">

Larn "A bare bodkin? Sure, I love striptease!" Lobos

[Tryunn]

Ah, but my original premise was... I'm not talking about just one monkey here. I'm talking about ALL monkeys ALWAYS and FOREVER. Maybe that wasn't clear.

Larn, do you work for the U.S. treasury, perhaps? 'Cause your math is fuzzy to me. Could just be 'cause I have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

[dsfire]

Even my TI-92 (which is out on loan) probably couldn't handle computing the possibility of randomly typing an entire work. Given that, eternity is still long enough that it would eventually happen. But yeah, they're probably more likely to come up with the code for Everquest before they finish writing Julius Caesar. ">

[Herbert Dypp]

i remember reading/studying this at college (far too many years ago now) and the idea as illustrated to me was that given an infinite amount of time a single monkey could and would type the entire works of Shakespeare...the fact that you can work out a probablity of this happening indicates the truth of the statement...however ludicrous it seems!! i seem to remember it being an important concept in quantum physics...but i may be wrong ">

[Larn Lobos]

Oddly enough, I was just listening to my "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" tapes, and I came across this line:

"Ford...there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for 'Hamlet' they've worked out."



Larn "Forty-Two!" Lobos

[Rikkie175]

[dsfire]

If you had that many monkeys, you'd crash Skyshrine! Er...

[Tryunn]

I'll take a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster now please. Or do I need three arms to hold the tubes?