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[snapty00]

I had heard of the theorem before, and for those who don't know about it, here's a brief summary:

The infinite monkey theorem1 says that, with absolute certainty, a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard will eventually type every book in France's Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library).

But I never knew someone actually tried it!

In 2003, scientists at Paignton Zoo and the University of Plymouth, in Devon in England reported that they had left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Sulawesi Crested Macaques for a month; not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages (http://www.vivaria.net/experiments/notes/publication/NOTES_EN.pdf) consisting largely of the letter S, they started by attacking the keyboard with a stone, and continued by urinating and defecating on it.

:lol

 

[Escape Goat]

When in doubt, defecate on it.

 

[DarienA]

The problem here is that the monkeys were not given an ergonomic keyboard.

 

[sprsk]

The problem here is that the monkeys were not given an ergonomic keyboard.

nor were they given an infinite time to type!

 

[snapty00]

YES, I FEEL CHEATED

I think it's just amusing that someone felt the need to try this. :lol The whole idea of the theorem is that even if something is theoretically possible given an infinite amount of time, it's not worth giving any consideration if the probability is so miniscule to begin with.

 

[iapetus]

There's a neat article on this on Wikipedia.

In 2000, the IETF Internet standards committee's April 1st RFC proposed an "Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)", a method of directing a farm of infinitely many monkeys over the Internet.

A rather jocular quote by Robert Wilensky on the theorem is, "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."

See also: http://user.tninet.se/~ecf599g/aardasnails/java/Monkey/webpages/index.html

 

[Mermandala]

last sentence typed by monkeys - nnmjfgmnmmmassssssjjkbhnmnnomg!shakespearsuxkthnxby!

 

[duderon]

So does this theorem take into account that the monkeys could evolve into a more intelligent animal in millions of years, helping them randomize a masterpiece? :lol