Parodied in books and movies, a theorem involving typing monkeys has kept math geeks busy for centuries. Now two experts say there’s not enough time (or monkeys) in the universe for simians to write much beyond gibberish.
It’s a long-held notion: Given infinite time and/or infinite monkeys, some keyboard-pecking chimp would eventually re-create all of William Shakespeare’s works.
Known as a “thought-experiment,” math whizzes use the theorem to explain principles of probability (how likely something is to happen) and randomness (prediction and patterns).
But there’s a catch in this so-called Infinite Monkeys Theorem. It considers only infinite resources: infinite monkeys and/or infinite time.
Mathematicians Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falleta say that makes the original Infinite Monkeys Theorem true but “misleading”—because infinite monkeys and infinite time aren’t possible on Earth.
The two mathematicians wanted to test the monkey theorem against set, or finite, limits. Their Finite Monkeys Theorem considers whether a string of words could be “typed by one of a finite number of monkeys within a finite time.” Their time boundary was “the lifespan of our universe” according to their paper published in the journal Franklin Open.
An all-wise God created constraints like time and space on Earth. But no human knows when the end of Earth will be. And the end isn’t really the end! Believers will praise Him forever.
Woodcock and Falletta ran the numbers on several chimp tasks. The easiest involved a single word: bananas. They calculated a 5% likelihood that a lone monkey could pound out the name of its favorite yellow fruit during its lifetime.
The longer the text, the worse the imaginary monkey typists fared. To construct a simple logical sentence, one chimp has a one in 10 million billion billion chance of success—a one with 25 zeros!
As for typing text for the novel Planet of the Apes or even Curious George? Even more unlikely.
Finally, the two researchers calculated whether every monkey in the world—about 200,000—could ever replicate the poems and plays of Shakespeare. They say monkeys couldn’t succeed even if every chimp in the world hit one key per second until the scientists’ projected world’s end.
“It is not plausible that, even with improved typing speeds or an increase in chimpanzee populations, monkey labour will ever be a viable tool for developing non-trivial written works,” the study says.
Perhaps the new theorem solves the question of the typing monkeys—and says with Shakespeare’s Petruchio of The Taming of the Shrew: “And there an end.”
Why? Sometimes discussing far-fetched ideas can help with real-life problem solving. Other times, that may bring us to wonder at God’s awesomeness in the face of our own limitations.
