For years there has been a mathematical theory that if an infinite number of monkeys had an infinite amount of time and an endless supply of typewriters and paper they could reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. If the Bard were alive today, he would be turning in his grave worrying about it. It was known as the “infinite monkey puzzle.” Presumably named after the tree.
But now two Australian academics, Stephen Woodcock and Jay Fallatta, have done a study and say they have proved this wrong. Forget worrying about climate change or solving poverty and starvation, they thought their time would best spent on monkey business. So they got hold of one monkey in Sydney, sat it in front of a lap top, and got it working. I trust they paid the appropriate rate.
They took the results and calculated that if all the monkeys in the world, 200,000, took on the same job there was only a 5% chance they could manage to type the word “bananas”, let alone reproduce Hamlet.
They said, being scientists and all that, “this proves that using the idea of infinite resources gives results that don’t match up with what we get when we consider the constraints of our universe.” And it leaves me wondering, did they teach the monkey to use Spellcheck? That might have helped.