Feb 04

FYI: Monkeys… unlikely to write Hamlet

FYI, Odd Add comments

image thumb18 FYI: Monkeys… unlikely to write Hamlet
Yeah, I know, it surprised me too. Big numbers can do that.

You know the theory… “get enough monkeys in a room with a typewriter long enough and they will write Hamlet” by accident.

Err… wrong.

It turns out monkeys aren’t random. They like the letter S for instance. They also pee and bash the typewriters, breaking them.

Assuming a world full of monkeys and typewriters that never run out of ribbon or fail, the odds are still be less than one in 10183,800

Which equals 0 on any calculator you might have handy. Even the might Google says so:    image thumb19 FYI: Monkeys… unlikely to write Hamlet

5 Responses to “FYI: Monkeys… unlikely to write Hamlet”

  1. Carl Nelson Says:
    February 4th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

    Ah yes, but infinity is as long a time as zero is the approximation of a small number. Back to Calculus 101 and the theory of limits of a function. The calculator says zero only because it doesn’t have the capacity to complete the calculation. Do you accept a limited calculator result and reject a limited climate model result even though both produce an merely approximate result for the same reason – insufficient capacity?

  2. Ken Says:
    February 4th, 2009 at 5:14 pm

    I accept that the sun will burn out before the monkeys get very far. Besides, with the monkey’s not being random, it isn’t going to happen. Period.

    As to the weak attempt to say I accept bad math… nice try.

    Climate models aren’t trying to achieve a mathematical approximation of an event where all causes are known (like 1/10**big number). The problems with climate come not from mathematical error but in fundamentally not knowing how climate works.

  3. TR Says:
    February 4th, 2009 at 8:58 pm

    Only a quantum based physical process is truly random, e.g. radioactive decay or photon impingement on a semi-transparent mirror. Quantum effects in monkeys (and all sentients) stop at the molecular level, i.e. within an atomic string like an allele.

  4. Ken Says:
    February 5th, 2009 at 11:00 am

    Another view shared to me be a tall bystander, and perhaps possible, is that the monkeys will evolve and then write Hamlet. But since that apparently already happened, and it DIDN’T require a typewriter, I’m still skeptical.

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    July 1st, 2010 at 10:55 pm

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