WAG - Much Adoing by Monkeys
To start off, I’d like to thank the infinite number of monkeys that worked together to produce tonight’s post. Specifically, I’d like to thank chimp number 3,008,379,984 Jr. who was the one who best captured what I wanted to expound upon tonight. Honorable mentions go out to chimps 2,487,285,309,439 and 482,304,209,203. Kudos, as always, also goes out to the infinite number of maintenance workers for reviewing the output, cleaning the cages, keeping the tenants happy and well stocked with paper, and for not unionizing (largely due to the fact that the results of the last group referendum are still being tallied [Eat your heart out, Dade County]).
Okay. I’d say stop me if you’ve heard this one, but then I’d have nothing to post, so here we go.
Have you ever heard the saying that if you had an infinite number of monkeys typing away randomly on an infinite number of typewriters, they’d eventually produce the works of Shakespeare?
For some reason, my mind decided to ponder this potentiality.
Note: I took a class on probability my freshman year in college, so I think I’m experienced enough to speak upon this subject.
So, let me brake this old tired saying down.
We’ll start out with an easy one. Why monkeys?
Answer: With a limited number of creatures with opposable thumbs (sorry, cows), the contest was already limited. When it came to selecting an appropriate animal, the comment crafters that be must have erred on the cuter end of the spectrum. As much fun as it would be to watch a gorilla pound away at a typewriter, literally, those who have watched the Planet of the Apes series knows what happens when we pit ourselves against an army of darned dirty apes. For those of you who haven’t watched the series, let’s just say humanity rarely fares well. That’s why going with the cuddly, more docile, more easily controlled monkey was the preferred option.
Getting another simple component out of the way, why typewriters?
Simple. Expecting monkeys to write Shakespeare with pens and pencils is ridiculous and word processors or computers weren’t common place when the question was posed.
Moving on, we ask the question, why Shakespeare?
We can only speculate here. Many critics propose that Shakespeare is the epitome of English culture and we’ve been declining ever since. Comparing it to modern fair like Fear Factor and One Tree Hill, one has to admit we’ve been spiraling downward for some time to get to this point.
Anyway, the difficulty of Shakespeare is another factor. I mean, one is more likely randomly churn out the December 16, 2002 TV Guide than one of Shakespeare’s plays.
Want an example. Okay.
Here’s a random text generation site following the “monkey principle.” For those of you not willing to go through the effort to open another window, just take my word that it’s creating random lines like fdk uie I jh ueu jdfjv uedn.
I spent some time watching it, and the only words I could pick out of the chaotic mess were “mat,” “by,” “if,” and “me.” Words that were almost spelled, or within one letter were, “peppy,” “igloo,” “ramp,” “toy,” “is” and “Rita.”
No, I wasn’t watching The Tragedy (most people forget the start of the title) Romeo and Julie appear before my eyes, __INSERT_LEONARDO_DICAPRIO_JOKE_HERE__, but the concept is solid.
If you want another example, Dr. Math probes some of the number on his site.
He also ponders the difficulty one would have wrangling and maintaining such a work force, but quickly puts an end to such ponderings by repeating the mathematician credo, “But again, this is math so we will ignore the real world.”
Dr. Math simplifies the problem by looking at how long would it take for one monkey to produce one Shakespearian sonnet.
He picks a sonnet of
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest
Thou dost beguile the world unbless some mother
For where is she so fair whose uneard womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self love to stop posterity
Thou art thy mothers glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime
So thou through windows of thine age shall see
Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time
But if thou live rememberd not to be
Die single and thine image dies with thee
For those of you keeping score at home, this is typically listed as Shakespeare’s Third Sonnet. It should be toward the front of the portfolio, and will make a good representative work.
Anyway, after removing punctuation, he figures there are 572 characters in that sonnet. Multiply each character slot by 27, the number of possible keys the monkey could type (the alphabet plus the space key), and you get…
Note: An 519 digit number, not counting commas, that threw the website alignment out of wack when posted in it's entirety. As much work as I put into putting all the commas into it, I hate not to post it, but that's the way it is. You can see the BIG number on the Dr. Math site.
For those of you who glazed over after the first six digits, we can shorten that to 5 x 10^818 (that’s a 5 with 518 zeros at the end for those of you who have forgotten mathematic shorthand).
Note: For the record, it took a long time just to insert all the commas in that block (especially when I’d spot a mistake and go back to correct it halfway down the block).
Next, the good doctor estimates that the monkey will type a consistent 120 characters per minute. This is a theoretical monkey, so we can safely remove bathroom, food, and sleeping time without PETA complaining. Our imaginary monkey should be able to crank out a block like this once every 5 minutes. Dividing the amount of time in a year by that number, we find he can create 105120 of these “potential sonnets” every year. Divide that by the larger number mentioned earlier (do you appreciate how I’m trying to expose you to as little math as possible), and you find it will take a single monkey 5*10^813 years to create the sonnet.
That’s a lot of monkeying around. The idea is that the copying of Shakespeare, or any other document from the Magna Carta to "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," can be done, but it would take a long time.
As my old math teacher taught us, “Some things are possible, but just not probable.”
Though that’s quite a bit of work for our monkey to crank out a measly sonnet, in our theoretical experiment, the process is shortened when you add an infinite number of monkeys. This would make the production instantaneous (if you picked a big infinity, of course). This would render Kinkos, Staples, and other copying places obsolete if it weren’t for all the other support jobs it would take to support the monkeys.
Granted, all the copies would be done quickly. The real job would be matching the right monkey with the order and disposing of all of the mistakes.
”Hey Charlie. Scratch this one. Number 390,038,877 had King Lear right through Act 3 up to Scene IV when he had, “This cold night will turn us all into fools and madoif jw[o.”
Anyway, logistics aside, one has to ask what have we accomplished with this infinite monkey copy system? We now have another copy of the works of Shakespeare. Great. Like we didn’t have one in the first place. What’s the perk, other than this one smells faintly of bananas and animal musk?
If you have a master copy to compare it to, why didn’t we put it in front of the monkeys for them to copy, you may ask. Granted, we’d have to teach them to read, but all things said and done, a new copy of Shakespeare and a troop of literate monkeys would be much more impressive. I think that would be a greater accomplishment. Think of how you’d brag about it at parties.
“My collection of Shakespeare was monkey copied,” your host boasts.
“Oh yeah? We I have a monkey copied collection of Shakespeare too and a siminan named Mr. Giggles, who can read it,” you counter.
“Oh…!” the audience responds in awe.
Imagine the world we could live in…
For those of you who can’t wait for science to advance to the point where cloning, food production, and general speed reading skills are advanced enough to make such a future possible, let me offer you a temporary substitute.
Here’s a random monkey generator. Just click the link and you’ll be forwarded to another monkey. You can repeat this process infinitely (or at least 13 times, because that’s as far as I got before my attention span ran out. I can’t vouch for any more than that).
Does all this seem confusing, convoluted, and much ado about nothing?
Good. That means this whole exercise only confirms my long held conclusion: math, while simple and straightforward on paper, is too easily complicated when set loose in the real world.
'Mr_Giggles_want_a_banana'
