Sunday, July 17, 2005

The infinite mokey theorem

The infinite mokey theorem states that almost surely (i.e. with probability equal to 1) a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard will eventually type out the collected works of William Shakespeare.
So, does it really happen? Some people (who had spare PCs and spare time) tried it out. This quote from the wikipedia article

""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 consisting largely of the letter S, they started by attacking the keyboard with a stone, and continued by urinating and defecating on it.""


Come to think of it maybe even before "infinity" occurs, the monkey(s) could actually evolve into a more intelligent lifeform and then take over the world.

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