this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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The question that everyone has been dying to know has been answered. Finally! What will scientists study next?

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, that’s why we need at least... two of them.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

the paper used the entire population (200 thousand) and would take some 10 ^ 10 ^ 7 heat deaths of the universe

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It could happen the very first time a monkey sat down at a typewriter. It's just very unlikely.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

from the wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

If there were as many monkeys as there are atoms in the observable universe typing extremely fast for trillions of times the life of the universe, the probability of the monkeys replicating even a single page of Shakespeare is unfathomably small.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

... the probability of the monkeys replicating even a single page of Shakespeare is unfathomably small.

But not zero.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Basically nothing is ever truly zero

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Someone wiser than me already said that it already has happened: 1 ape did, in fact, write the complete works of Shakespeare.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

monkey c monkey do

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Apes are monkeys though, just like we're apes and birds are dinosaurs

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

We are apes and birds are dinosaurs, but monkeys and apes are distinct categories under primates so no, apes are not monkeys.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fair enough. I wouldn’t want to insult the Librarian.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

The probability of lots of things is zero. The probability of a monkey typing a Chinese character on an English keyboard is zero.

Similar idea: there are an infinite amount of numbers between zero and one, but none of those numbers is two.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

Weird how neither of those numbers are infinities. Almost like the numbers used are unfathomably small in comparison.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

So you’re telling me… there’s a chance!

Sorry, I’m sort of lampooning comments like the one above and below you where people just can’t resist focusing on the possibility, no matter how ridiculously remote it seems. For myself, there’s a point of “functionally zero odds” that I’m willing to accept and move on with my life.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

so you're saying there's a chance...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

So you're saying there's a chance.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

ok so the monkeys need to type faster

[–] 0x0 3 points 3 weeks ago

Let's put them in open spaces in offices and micro-mananage then, that'll work.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Irrelevant. The heat death of the universe is a constraint unrelated to the premise of the original problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I don't think it's a constraint, it's more like a measuring stick to try to show how ridiculously long that time is

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

It's really not that long, if we can't get monkeys to write Shakespeare.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

We could breed monkeys to much higher populations.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

If we're considering even chimps "monkeys", there's already eight billion of them, I think that's enough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

enough to cut a few zeros of a number with 10 million of them