Mathematicians Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta of Sydney, Australia have done a peer-reviewed study on the much-maligned “infinite monkey theorem.” The theorem posits that a monkey pressing randomly at keys on a typewriter will eventually come up with the complete works of William Shakespeare given enough time. According to researchers, this theorem may be mathematically correct, but misleading.
The study finds out that to type out the Bard’s works, from the plays, sonnets to poems by a monkey keyboard, is beyond the ages of a universe. These mathematicians calculated the effort not for one but used the chimpanzee population number, a rough estimate about 200,000. Their results indicate that if each chimpanzee clicked on one key per second from the start of the universe until its end, they would still not be able to create enough works to equal Shakespeare’s.
Researches have shown that at the end of a life cycle, one chimpanzee types the word “bananas” only once. Probability to type a random sentence formed by one chimp will be about one in 10 million billion billion with example like “I chimp, therefore I am”. These statistics clearly signify the fact that monkeys or chimps cannot possibly compose any meaningful literary works out of random keystrokes.
The calculations in the study are based on the heat death theory, which is the most widely accepted hypothesis concerning the ultimate fate of the universe. This scenario describes a gradual expansion and cooling of the universe, which eventually leads to a state where everything within it dies off and decays.
Associate Professor Woodcock concluded that the result puts the infinite monkey theorem in line with other probability puzzles and paradoxes, where the concept of having infinite resources results in conclusions that never actually happen in the world constrained by our universe.
This work presents a groundbreaking proof against one of the commonly accepted probabilities while at the same time proving that infinite scenarios, as depicted, are unrealistic.
