1000 monkeys at 1000 computers typing randomly for infinite time...

Markus Leon said:
If you try to walk through a wall enough times, it will finally happen too. Has to do with what in quantum mechanics is referred to as tunneling.


Might take a few tries tho :D
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surely this thread cant get more bizaree & at times stupid :) :S

considering your body would degrade down first that example is a really bad
 
What about ants?
 
evolution said:
I haet your math Lei.
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Math is power! Math=Power. Powerlifting=Mathlifting...? Me=Math Student...Me=Power Student?

I think Suess has a good point...if you have 1000 monkeys with 1000 brushes and 1000 colors are they going to recreate the Sistine Chapel given an infinite number of years?

Why stop at Shakespeare? Why not Milton, Tennison, King, The Quran? Are we saying given time that the monkeys would be able to recreate anything and everything?
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If you had infinite colors with infinite palates and threw random color blotches an infinite amount of times, sure. I think the text example is better because text is something that most everyone understands. Things are made up of sequences, patterns, and series. Anything that can be reproduced can be done so randomly with infinite resources and infinite time.

An argument for the validity of The Quran as the word of God I've heard is that The Quran is grammatically perfect. The language in which it was written is very cryptic and very very difficult to understand and utilize in the way it was utilized by Mohammed, who was supposedly illiterate.

But you give random chance enough "chances", and it can be remade.

Proteinboy said:
what the heck? if you try to walk through a wall enough times you would eventually walk through it?
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Yeah...that's not really the best example.


hes saying that you can recreate anything and everything AND that they will create anything/ everything that can ever be written with a computer an infinite amount of times. that means they eventually create their own works.
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Pretty much. Creation takes creativity, though. If you vomit on your keyboard and come out with an economical thesis that ushers the world into an era of prosperity, can you honestly say that you thought that up? "Their own works" is the only part in that statement that I have a problem with. The sooner you seperate the humanities and emotions from the mathematics, the more sense it will make.



what is the difference between copying and creating given the monkeys had no idea what hamlet was to begin with? it doesnt matter that we had the original. they recreated it without knowing it existed to begin with.
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True enough. I was referring to Simb's post about requiring creativity to type a bunch of letters.

:/ i hate his math too
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Don't hate. Embrace.
 
matt182 said:
surely this thread cant get more bizaree & at times stupid :) :S

considering your body would degrade down first that example is a really bad
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Some say it would be impossible to get through in one piece yes but theoretically I could work. Scientists have conducted experiments where they've fired massive amounts of very small particles against very thin obstacles at a speed where they should not be able to get through. But once in a while a phenomenon occurs called "quantum tunnelling" - where all of the sudden a single particle appears on the other side even though it shouldn’t. How it happens is unknown and quite strange, its like if you would drop a tennis ball on the floor and it would bounce back up higher than the level you dropped it from. For this to happen to a person every single particle that you consist of would have to line up perfectly during the entire travel through the wall.

There is a big difference between quantum and normal physics.
 
About the painting, you could also make a very simple program that randomly colours the pixels on the screen and over time it will generate images of everything that has ever existed and will ever exist.

How can anyone not get this, its very very basic
 
if there are infinite colors to choose from to paint with, even with infinite time, it cant paint everything because there is a never ending amound of variations you could produce.

drseuss said:
Still...if the ants wer *fire* ants...I think they could take a monkey.
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depends how many fire ants and what kind of monkey and how hungry the monkey is.

LeiYunFat said:
Math is power! Math=Power. Powerlifting=Mathlifting...? Me=Math Student...Me=Power Student?

Don't hate. Embrace.
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*embraces*
 
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Markus Leon said:
Some say it would be impossible to get through in one piece yes but theoretically I could work. Scientists have conducted experiments where they've fired massive amounts of very small particles against very thin obstacles at a speed where they should not be able to get through. But once in a while a phenomenon occurs called "quantum tunnelling" - where all of the sudden a single particle appears on the other side even though it shouldn’t. How it happens is unknown and quite strange, its like if you would drop a tennis ball on the floor and it would bounce back up higher than the level you dropped it from. For this to happen to a person every single particle that you consist of would have to line up perfectly during the entire travel through the wall.

There is a big difference between quantum and normal physics.
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Actually theoritcally it wouldnt work, considering the person would die of trying constantly then how would the body have the means to move.

Also, Qauntum and reality is quite different..
 
This thread just reminded me of one of my favourite quotes... :D

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.
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Robert Wilensky, speech at a 1996 conference
 
drseuss said:
What if you gave them a bunch of paint and brushes? Could the same 1000 monkeys replicate the paintings at the Sistine Chapel??
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Maybe, but that's a far harder question because the things you could do with a brush and some paint are probably infinite as well, however with a keyboard you're limited to the keys on a keyboard meaning you can prove it would happen through the laws of probability
 
It's definately harder to quantify, but if it WERE purely random in everything, then it would definately happen. The fact that there are infinite ways to move a brush just makes the odds of making something look exactly like something else is lowered. Doesn't mean it's non-existant. The odds of one over infinity is pretty much zero. But only because we can't quantify it as anything else UNLESS we multiply by infinity, in which case, the infintessimal odds are significant, and the product is one.

Infinite ways to brush, infinite paints, and infinite randomness for eternity would yeild everything paintable in the universe.
 
Yeah, I don't doubt that but it's a far harder concept for the human mind to grasp. re-creating Hamlet is easy to quantify which the mind copes with pretty well and people can show off their maths skills predicting how long it could take too :)
 
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