Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
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Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#2Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#3These Mathematicians are very selective about which aspects of the universe they want to regard and which aspects they want ignore. Like, yeah you can take an imaginary situation and imagine that it's possible, or impossible. It can go any way because it's imaginary. No need to waste time on math, you can just imagine any outcome you like.
In reality, however, I think if you had a system that feeds a monkey a treat every time it strikes a letter key that corresponds to the next letter in a Shakespere play displayed on a monitor, you would eventually have some Shakespeare typed out by a monkey.
One could also just have a monkey mash keys for a while, and then after removing all the unnecessary letters you'd be left with a Shakespearian play.
Or, with a group of monkeys and plenty of time one could use natural selection to evolve them into a literate species that could handle the task easily. This is the method currently in use for the typing of Shakespeare. It has already been done, many times over.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#4No-one ever said it would happen within a finite time period, only that it would happen given infinite time.
That’s the whole point.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#5These Mathematicians are very selective about which aspects of the universe they want to regard and which aspects they want ignore. Like, yeah you can take an imaginary situation and imagine that it's possible, or impossible. It can go any way because it's imaginary. No need to waste time on math, you can just imagine any outcome you like. In reality, however, I think if you had a system that feeds a monkey a treat e…
Hey man, remember to type out that play before the universe dies
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#6No-one ever said it would happen within a finite time period, only that it would happen given infinite time. That’s the whole point.
Yeah exactly, it's a thought experiment about infinities... Is someone going to publish a study concluding that Hilbert's Hotel couldn't be built on Earth too?
Why are people even spending money on this research? What are they trying to prove/disprove?
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#7link to paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277318632...
The basic point is an exercise in at least one older freshman text (Kittel & Kroemer?) but at least this paper does go on beyond and finds some strings (eg "I chimp, therefore I am") that are likely to be typed before the heat death of the universe, if not before extinction of chimpanzees.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#8No-one ever said it would happen within a finite time period, only that it would happen given infinite time. That’s the whole point.
Yeah exactly, it's a thought experiment about infinities... Is someone going to publish a study concluding that Hilbert's Hotel couldn't be built on Earth too? Why are people even spending money on this research? What are they trying to prove/disprove?
> Why are people even spending money on this research? What are they trying to prove/disprove?
That it takes much fewer than infinite humans and infinite time to produce the most pedantic paper possible.
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#9No-one ever said it would happen within a finite time period, only that it would happen given infinite time. That’s the whole point.
Yeah exactly, it's a thought experiment about infinities... Is someone going to publish a study concluding that Hilbert's Hotel couldn't be built on Earth too? Why are people even spending money on this research? What are they trying to prove/disprove?
> Why are people even spending money on this research?
"This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors."
Re: Universe would die before monkey with keyboard writes Shakespeare, study finds
#10No-one ever said it would happen within a finite time period, only that it would happen given infinite time. That’s the whole point.
Yeah exactly, it's a thought experiment about infinities... Is someone going to publish a study concluding that Hilbert's Hotel couldn't be built on Earth too? Why are people even spending money on this research? What are they trying to prove/disprove?
It's just barely possible that this is not an entirely serious paper. Scientists like to have fun too, you know?
Not to mention that frivolous research has been known to pay surprising dividends.