Why An Infinite Number of Virtual Monkeys...

...is better than a finite number of real ones.

Dude comes up with a computer program to randomly type. Then he uses distributed processing to simulate an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters. In the next couple weeks he expects to have the complete works of Shakespeare:

[emphasis mine]

And there's where the theory breaks down--it doesn't take into account that monkeys may not behave randomly.

I sure do miss Kirk1Adm.

I'm pretty sure I saw something like this online a couple of years ago. And I seem to recall that the virtual monkeys had only typed something like a line or two of Shakespeare amongst all the random crap. I don't think it's as easy as this guy thinks.

I would have a tough time editing this. I'd probably be too kind in my criticism, because after all they are only monkeys. Anything close to a coherent thought would be pretty fucking cool!

A million virtual monkeys will be woefully inadequate, even if the monkeys can type a trillion letters a second.

Take a Shakespeare play--say, King Lear--which has (according to this site) 27507 words in it. Figure each word is, on average, four letters long. That's about 100,000 letters. Figure also there are spaces, punctuation, stage directions, character names, and whatnot. Say, altogether, about 150,000 letters.

For the sake of simplicity, let's assume only capital letters, the numerals 0-9, and a dozen bits of punctuation are needed. That's 26 + 10 + 12 = 48 possible characters.

So, the odds of randomly getting the very first letter of King Lear correct is 1/48. One time out of 48, you will get it right.

The second letter? Also, a probability of 1/48. But the accumulated probability of getting both the first and the second letter? 1/48 * 1/48 = 1/48^2 (sorry for the math, Muad Dib). That's one chance in 48^2 = 1 out of 2304 attempts will you get these two letters in sequence.

The third letter? 1/48 * 1/48 * 1/48 = 1/48^3. 1 chance in 110,592.

You see where this is going...every additional letter makes the chances of the complete sequence appearing 48 times less likely.

The odds of getting the whole play? 1 in 48^150,000.

How big is that number? To give you some indication, there are about 10^80 atoms of hydrogen in the entire universe, and that number is infinitesimal compared to 48^150,000.

If the monkeys could generate a trillion letters a second? To make the math easy, let's forget the 48 and call it 10^150,000 (which is, in truth, a much, much, much, much, much smaller number). A trillion is 10^12, so it would require 10^150,000 / 10^12 seconds or 10^149,988 seconds.

How old is the universe currently? On the order of 10^17 seconds. So, the amount of time required by the monkeys to type King Lear is around 149,971 orders of magnitude greater than the age of the universe.

You could make it a trillion trillion trillion trillion monkeys, each monkey capable of typing a trillion trillion trillion trillion letters a second, and you still wouldn't produce one of Shakespeare's plays within anything remotely close to the age of the universe.

Yeah, but what if the random monkey is really really smart?

Hell, Humans have been typing random crap on their keyboards for a while now and we still haven't come up with shit.

You do the math.
6 billion humans, descendents of monkeys; keyboards, or "type" has been in existence for ...140 years?, computer keyboards for 50?

Paladin's math is basically correct though.

I need to have monkeys pick my lottery numbers.

And if you had Graham's number of monkeys? You'd produce the complete works of Shakespeare in Chinese faster than baba can misspell Krzyzewski if all the monkeys did was fling shit on the wall to try to produce Chinese characters.

You just need to think of numbers a whole lot bigger than a million.

In a 'quilted multiverse' as postulated by Brian Greene, not only does the 'monkeys producing the works of shakespeare' theory hold up, it happens an infinite number of times. See his latest book for the mathematical proof.

We'll never simulate it accurately in our universe, although it can be mathematically proven, and quite simply. Read the book. I'm about 40% of the way through it and its pure gold.

didn't I just say that?

Paladin's math is flawed in the formula. Besides line numbering, there aren't any numerals in Shakespeare.
Over 20% variance in figuring out the odds because of that.

Gee, now it might be practical.

I think the point he is making is simply that, given the finite nature of the universe, such an event is very unlikely to occur.

I'd find it hard to believe that anyone read Paladin's post otherwise if I hadn't read some of the responses to it.

You need a whole lot more than a million monkeys to get them to produce Shakespeare in an observable or conceivable amount of time.

Like we're going to believe that the guy who shoves Gerbils up his ass and acts like a fucking monkey on crack on this board in his posts is capable of understanding math other then counting Gerbils.

Right.............

Just for that, smart guy, I'm putting lowercase letters back in.

Net gain of 16 symbols!

I know...

I was just fascinated by the deeper implications latent in the terms of his reasoning.

The most fascinating implication of this thread is that Zombie sticks gerbils up his ass, although that's not so fascinating if you're a gerbil unless you're a gerbil who likes that kind of thing.

Lol no comment. I don't even know who Zombie is. Too many new people here.

I should permaban you for that post.

Liet or Soma?

Aren't you the one who has difficulty counting black people. I mean, they must all look the same to you.

Fuck this Shakespeare shit. I want to see how long it takes an infinite amount of monkeys with an infinite amount of time to create a script like Fight Club. I want a goddamn sequel, and it better be good!

The sequel will be called Rep Club. Written by baba.

The one who has me on ignore and yet reads my posts anyway.........

Actually, I'm surprised that no-one has yet brought up the
"Infinite rednecks on infinite roads in trucks with infinite shotguns printing the bible in braile by shooting infinite stop signs on a long enough timelime" one yet.

Ya know, now that I think about it, I figure the sequel to "Fight Club" was "Inglorious Basterds".

Not Three men and a baby?

Not quite. While Tom Selleck is man enough to make three Steve Guttenbergs cry, there's still the matter of Steve Guttenberg.
Also, Ted Danson.