Monkey Typewriter Expirement

The recent Chaos Theory Badge saws “50 monkeys on typewriters will eventually compose the works of Shakespeare,”

However this is incorrect. Scientists have tried this and the monkeys simply destroyed the typewriters.

Here is but one occasion of this http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2340

I feel that as a scientific community Kongregate must live up to common scientific knowledge.

By now I hope you’ve realized that I actually don’t care I just think it’s funny that someone actually tried this and disproved it.

A substitute for this statement is that encoded somewhere in pi is all of The Illiad. However, this doesn’t really work for the badge.

The badge is a sarcastic reference to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which states that an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite amount of time could eventually write the works of Shakespeare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem_in_popular_culture

That was the article Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture.

IF you go to the infinite monkey theorem page itself there is a section saying that it will not work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

Also I feel that calling it a "sarcastic reference is a stretch.
The situation posed by the badge has been disproved. Rather it is a reference or not it is incorrect.

I don’t feel that the situation has actually been disproved. After all, you never know if some day the monkey’s won’t discover typing on them.

Saying that someday this something may happen can be used for anything and it is a part of scientific exploration that everyone understands.

It has been proven that sharks can pick up electric signals but someday they may discover how to block them out.

IT has been proven that the force of attraction of one of object to another object is proportional to the project of their masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them squared. But someday it might not be squared just like Weird Al’s song “Pancreas” says.

I don’t think you quite understand the scope of the word ‘infinite’

A substitute for this statement is that encoded somewhere in pi is all of The Illiad. However, this doesn’t really work for the badge.

The idea with the badge is just that some of the tasks are so random that they might seem bizarre and impossible, but if you were to randomly mash on the keyboard for an infinite amount of time, you would eventually get it by pure chance.

The badge is a sarcastic reference to the Infinite Monkey Theorem, which states that an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite amount of time could eventually write the works of Shakespeare.

Actually, if you had an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters, wouldn’t they produce the entire works of Shakespeare in an infinitely SMALL amount of time? Or if you had infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters, wouldn’t they produce an infinite number of COPIES of the entire works of Shakespeare within one millionth of a second? Wouldn’t you only need a single monkey on a single typewriter to produce an infinite number of copies of Shakespeare’s works, given an infinite amount of time?

Or, as Scott Adams once said, “If you put 50 monkeys in a room with 50 typewriters and wait an infinite amount of time, you’ll eventually end up with a room of 50 dead monkeys. Note: monkeys need food.”

>Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the letter S, the lead male began by bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by urinating and defecating on it.

lol

The point of the theorem is that the monkey would type completely random characters. Since they in reality don’t, the theorem doesn’t hold when taken that litterally.

If they did however type randomly, they would eventually type any given text you wish. If it’s a finite number of monkeys, it would however take so long that you would never see it happen.

Another thing about the theorem is that it’s redundant to have infinite many monkeys AND infinite time. Only one of them has to be infinite.

One monkey on one typewrite, but given infinite time (given that it lives forever) would eventually type the works of Shakespeare!

An infinite number of monkeys would not need infinite time to type it. One of them would type the works of Shakespeare right away, and it would only take the time it takes to type it once.

I believe that given infinite monkeys and infinite time it would simply not happen given that the monkeys only created the letters asdf and mostly just s, the typewriters were destroyed by urine, and since the monkeys have infinite time and we are assuming they will not die but perform as monkeys usually would, they produce infinite urine.

I would venture to guess that this infinite space would become quite full of the infinite urine especially around the monkeys which would hopefully be around the typewriters.

Infinite urine in infinite space taken up by infinite typewriter will land on the infinite typewriters and render them infinitly useless.

Although the alpha male made it unfixable with a rock the urine broke it and the monkeys are not of the genus “grease monkeys” when it comes to fixing things.

I understand the theorem however the infinite part of it is a key component.
Also, no not in a small amount of time. Monkeys simply couldn’t type fast enough for that.

Putting any kind of numbers with this has been disproved.
1 never hungry monkey on one typewriter with an infinate amount of time would simply destroy the typewriter.

Finally: “The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a particular chosen text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.”

The monkeys and typewriters are not infinite!
That is from the wikipedia article which although some may not trust it is often rather trustworthy.

It should be said that the monkey is not monkey it is a metaphor but in the case of a monkey it has been disproved until monkey get to the renaissance.

Someone please give me a shout when that day comes become monkeys + renaissance culture= awesome.

Two points I want to mention. First:

six typewriters that never would wear out

So who cares if they break?

Second: If there was an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite amount of time they would instantly produce the complete works of Shakespeare. If it is an infinite amount of monkey and typewriters, then every possibility would occur, simultaneously.

Third:

if you were to randomly mash on the keyboard for an infinite amount of time, you would eventually get it by pure chance.

XD I can see trying this.

I can’t belive your arguing about this!

>XD I can see trying this.

I did that before. I ended up writing Hamlet, unfortunately it was in Polish and I didn’t realize it until after I erased it for thinking it was random gibberish :(

Considering the monkeys and typewriters are infinite, how can you get number estimates?

Considering the monkeys and typewriters are infinite, how can you get number estimates?

If all three variables were infinite, then you would get every possible outcome.

Weirdest thread ever?

To be honest, I don’t agree you can have an infinite amount of monkeys. However, the statement holds because it starts with an “If”. BUT…when you start a sentence with “If”, you can say anything.
If there were an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters, there won’t be a big enough room to hold this event and thus, it would not have occurred.

Considering the monkeys and typewriters are infinite, how can you get number estimates?

If all three variables were infinite, then you would get every possible outcome.

And when did I name time?

And when did I name time?

You didn’t. But time is need to make any sort of assumptions in this case.

I don’t agree you can have an infinite amount of monkeys

You’re joking… I really, really hope there wasn’t anyone on here who thought that we were actually saying there would be an infinite amount of monkeys.

As to the space to hold them. You would need an infinite amount of space too.

The monkeys and typewriters are just metaphors for a series of random occurrences. I could just as easily say an infinite amount of pandas on an infinite amount of computers.

You didn’t. But time is need to make any sort of assumptions in this case.

Ok, but I didn’t say it is infinite. :/

If you had an infinite amount of monkeys on infinite typewriters you wouldn’t need infinite time because every possible outcome would happen all at once.

If you rolled an infinite amount of dice, at least one would be a six. So if you had an infinite amount of monkeys typing random letters on infinite typewriters, one of them would happen to type the correct sequence of letters

Ok, but I didn’t say it is infinite. :/

I know. But I had to use some variable, so I just used the one that has been said with this amout of monkeys.

If you had an infinite amount of monkeys on infinite typewriters you wouldn’t need infinite time because every possible outcome would happen all at once.

True. But since we are using monkeys as the example, they would have some physical limitations on how fast they could type.

You are right though. Bringing this problem down to its base, that being an infinite amount of random occurrences, whatever needs to be written would be. As I said earlier.

If it is an infinite amount of monkeys and typewriters, then every possibility would occur, simultaneously.

That’s the reason I prefer to use finite numbers when using this as an example.

In the real core base of the the theorem only the time is infinite.

It is one regular monkey that is being fed and given water on one regular typewriter.

I really don’t know where people are getting these infinite monkeys and typewriters because in that case it would probaly happen without other factors such as urine involved.

The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a particular chosen text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.

In this case, or in cases without an infinity of typewriters involved the monkeys destroy the typewriters after relieving themselves on it.

Are you even reading what I am saying? The monkeys are just a metaphor. Repeat after me: there… are… no… monkeys…

I put that in my post and am not debating it.
I really don’t care in what form you are taking it but I am talking about is seeing if in the metaphor there is actual truth

No one will debate that is not an accurate metaphor but it is fun to test and see if stuff like this is actually true.