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Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmail com> wrote:
> Also there was only one computer. The original scenario had a 1:1
> monkey-typewriter ratio.
What is the "original scenario"?
As far as I know, the compeltely original statement is: "One million
monkeys hammering on one million typewriters for one million years will
eventually produce the entire works of Shakespeare."
Of course that statement is patently false in all possible interpretations.
Later the falsity was attempted to be fixed by changing the "one million
years" to "an infinite amount of time".
Of course if you change it to an infinite amount of time, then the one
million number becomes superfluous. One monkey and one typewriter would
essentially say the exact same thing.
The spirit of the metaphor is, of course, that the "monkey" is really
a true evenly-distributed random number generator. While in this situation
the probability of the works popping up approaches 1, and the works will
thus almost surely pop up at some point, it's still not a guarantee. The
probability *approaches* 1, it never becomes it.
--
- Warp
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