http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3013959.stm

WTF-O-Meter: 2.8

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3013959.stm
>
> WTF-O-Meter: 2.8

Ha!

"The work was interesting but had little scientific value, except to show that
the 'infinite monkey' theory is flawed."

I love it. Flawed, as in he thinks nobody had ever noticed that an infinite
number of monkeys would be difficult to arrange? Or does he really think that
infinity can be approximated by eight? And whoever said it was a theory in the
first place? :-D

Although to be honest, this wtf is probably as much lazy reporting by the BBC as
anything said or done by those supposedly involved...

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Bill Pragnell wrote:

> Ha!
> 
> "The work was interesting but had little scientific value, except to show that
> the 'infinite monkey' theory is flawed."
> 
> I love it. Flawed, as in he thinks nobody had ever noticed that an infinite
> number of monkeys would be difficult to arrange? Or does he really think that
> infinity can be approximated by eight? And whoever said it was a theory in the
> first place? :-D

Well, let's face it, the theory really states that the probability of a 
string of random text containing the works of Shakespear approaches 
unity as the length of the string approaches infinity. Which actually 
has nothing to do with monkeys, really. Monkeys don't type statistically 
uncorrelated letters. They bash keys. The text thus far produced is 
anything but statistically random!

> Although to be honest, this wtf is probably as much lazy reporting by the BBC as
> anything said or done by those supposedly involved...

My personal favourit is the quote about this being cheaper and more 
entertaining than reality TV. ;-)

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Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> I love it. Flawed, as in he thinks nobody had ever noticed that an infinite
> number of monkeys would be difficult to arrange? Or does he really think that
> infinity can be approximated by eight? And whoever said it was a theory in the
> first place? :-D

  Actually there's no law of mathematics or physics which says that an
infinite number of monkeys will produce the works of Shakespeare (especially
given that the problem is incomplete: The amount of time is unspecified).

  One monkey and an infinite amount of time is closer, but still not a
guarantee.

  A true evenly-distributed random number generator and an infinite amount
of time is a lot, lot closer to fulfilling the claim, and the probability
of the works coming up is unlimitedly high, but there's still no absolute
guarantee.

  (Many people think that in this last case the works *will* eventually
appear with absolute certainty, but that's just the gambler's fallacy.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> They bash keys.

If you're lucky. They're just as likely to sit on it, or try to mate with it.
:-)

> My personal favourit is the quote about this being cheaper and more
> entertaining than reality TV. ;-)

Cheaper? Certainly. More entertaining? Well, is there really any fundamental
difference between them? ;-)

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Bill Pragnell <bil### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> > And whoever said it was a theory in the
> > first place? :-D
>
>   Actually there's no law of mathematics or physics which says that an
> infinite number of monkeys will produce the works of Shakespeare (especially
> given that the problem is incomplete: The amount of time is unspecified).

That's what I was getting at... it's not really a theory, more a
pop-thought-experiment. And a badly-formulated one, as you've pointed out.

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Also there was only one computer.  The original scenario had a 1:1 
monkey-typewriter ratio.

-- 
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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>> My personal favourit is the quote about this being cheaper and more
>> entertaining than reality TV. ;-)
> 
> Cheaper? Certainly. More entertaining? Well, is there really any fundamental
> difference between them? ;-)

...which is kind of my point...

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>>> And whoever said it was a theory in the
>>> first place? :-D
>>   Actually there's no law of mathematics or physics which says that an
>> infinite number of monkeys will produce the works of Shakespeare (especially
>> given that the problem is incomplete: The amount of time is unspecified).
> 
> That's what I was getting at... it's not really a theory, more a
> pop-thought-experiment. And a badly-formulated one, as you've pointed out.

More like, it's a precise mathematical statement, rendered casually as 
"if you gave a monkey infinite time to randomly type stuff"... which is 
rather less precise. And quite probably wrong in a number of ways. (For 
starters, monkeys don't type statistically random text...)

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Tim Cook <z99### [at] gmailcom> 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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