The Duplex by Glenn McCoy for July 20, 2010

They’ve also been know to say, “that’s the dumbest think I have ever read”!

I wouldn’t be lying awake on my roof at night wondering about it though.

They only need one for the complete works of Eno.

That’s a lot of typewriter paper. Do you think Staples would give you a discount?

One monkey with a Blackberry is enough for the complete works of Sarah Palin.

RUNAR didn’t you mean one monkey and a hand?

runar…. “refudiate”… funny funny funny

typewriter!!!!! whats that ???? loooooooooool

Direct hardcopy output from the keyboard with no intervening CPU. Kinda like Sarah Palin philosophy of government; direct benefit without intervening bureaucrats or fatcat politicians.

The internet proves that the quote isn’t true. It hasn’t been around for infinite amout of time but so far the monkees have produced anything on the keyboards but crap.

Badto Thebone said: ”The internet proves that the quote isn’t true. It hasn’t been around for infinite amout of time but so far the monkees have produced anything on the keyboards but crap.”

Humans haven’t done much better.

“To be or not to be. That is the ksmeilendkski…

“

Well, It was a good start.

On a hot August night in Ohio, as a teen I used to lay on the roof to cool off before bedtime. On a clear night, radiating to a 70 degree Kelvin sky cools one really fast. (apologies to Neal Diamond)

It wouldn’t take long if they just made up words like Sarah.

exoticdoc, the thought experiment has nothing to do with the intellectual capacities of monkeys, and everything to do with probablility. With a TRULY infinite number of monkeys, one would start typing the “Comedy of Errors” right right off the bat, and wouldn’t stop until he’d finished “The Phoenix and the Turtle” (or whatever order you want to put them in). But the odds of any FINITE number of monkeys, however vast, randomly producing anything recognizable of any length is vanishingly small (unless, of course, you give them a truly infinite amount of time).

I recently heard a joke that began, “An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar.”

Unless the door is infinitely wide, it would take an infinite amount of time for them all to enter.

They tried this. Monkeys sure love the S key.

“Deemed impossible” is not the same as “impossible”. Any probabability which is non-zero is theoretically possible given enough instances. There are a finite number of keys and functions on a typewriter. There is a calculable probablility that the fist key pressed will be “P”, the first letter of the first spoken line of “A Comedy of Errors.” There is a calcualble probability, even given the known fondness of monkeys for repeated letters, that the next operation will result in “r”. It is likewise calculable that the next letter will be “o”, and so on. To get every character and every function required to produce the complete works of Shakespeare is calculable, and finite. It doesn’t matter whether 10 to the power of 50 is deemed impossible in Las Vegas, it is still a finite probablility. Given a truly infinite number of monkeys, any finite probability approaches inevitability. In fact, given the known preferences for monkeys to press particular keys at a typewriter, and the finite (definite, in fact, if you have a particular edition in mind) combinations of keystrokes required to produce the complete works of Shakespeare, it would be possible to calculate the finite number of moneys required to bring the odds to 1:1. And any finite number is infinitely smaller than infinity.

It’s a thought experiment to illustrate the concepts of probability and infinity, and not a theorem that can be tested. Except on paper. On paper it’s inarguable.

Likewise, there is a calculable probablility that an electron will spontaneously dematerialize from one place and rematerialize in another. This, I believe, has been observed. There is a calculable probability that an entire atom will spontaneously dematerialize from one place and rematerialize intact in another. I don’t believe that this has been observed. There is a calcualable probability that the chair upon which you are sitting will spontaneously dematerialize and rematerialize intact in China; it would take more than all the known age of the universe and all the matter in the known universe to make such a thing “likely”, but that is still far from being “impossible”. Who knows? It might happen tomorrow.

I respectfully disagree with Doulas Adams in his formulation that the “impossible” is the same as the “infintely improbable”. Something that is infinitely improbable is necessarily infinitessimally probable, and an infinitessime is still a non-zero value. Something is truly impossible only when its probability is zero.

You, exoticdoc, are who you are because one specific sperm out of a billion produced by your father when you were conceived fertilized your mother’s egg. Your father and mother each were likewise one-in-a-billion chances. So were their parents, and their parents’ parents, etc. In short, the odds against you being exactly who you are are such that 10 to the 50th power against seems like a sure thing. Shall I then deem your particular and specific existence “impossible”?

You were neither impossible nor inevitable. Neither was I, nor was anyone reading these words. But here we are, all the same.

An urban myth? That monkeys at typewriters wouldn’t type the works of Shakespeare? An urban myth? WTF.

Statistically impossible? Do you know what inifinite means? It means it can’t be counted and therefore not subject to statistics.

It’s an intellectual exercise … it cannot and will not be proven. To claim that it’s false shows me the limit of your ability to think beyond what your creationist propaganda tells you to.