>  Since there is an infinite amount of different finite sequences of
> letters, the probability of one specific sequence (in this case the works
> of Shakespeare) to appear is, mathematically speaking, zero.

Sorry Warp, but that's just bad math.

One way to explain why you are wrong is that yes, there are an infinite 
number of finite length sequences of letters, but then there are also an 
infinite number of finite length sequences that *contain* the works (plus 
other junk).  So the probability calculation is infinity/infinity, not 
1/infinity.

If you restrict the problem down to finite sequences of the same length as 
"the works", then now there are only a finite number of possiblities, and 
exactly 1 of them will be "the works".

Just to assume "the works" are W letter long, then the probability of a 
random sequnce R of length W exactly matching is 64^-W (assuming 64 
characters here).  Then, the probability of R *not* matching is (1-64^-W). 
If we take N sequences of random letters, then the probability of finding 
"the works" is given by  1-(1-64^-W)^N, which *equals* 1 in the limit of N 
tending to infinity.

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