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] 42 points 1 day 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 1 day 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 1 day 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 1 day ago (3 children)

Basically nothing is ever truly zero

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours 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] 23 points 1 day 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 1 day ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours 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] 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

monkey c monkey do

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

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 23 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago

So you're saying there's a chance.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day 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 1 day ago

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