Monkeys on a Typewriter: Difference between revisions

{{trope|wppage=Infinite monkey theorem}}

 

A standard thought experiment from probability theory states that a million monkeys hammering a million typewriters (or a hundred, or a thousand) will eventually write the entire works of Shakespeare (or Dickens, or all the books in the British Library). This is a vivid enough mental image that it gets referenced a ''lot'' in fiction.

While they are part of the most common descriptions of this idea, versions involving "thousands" or "millions" of monkeys may confuse someone into thinking there is some kind of ''practical'' possibility of producing Shakespeare with monkeys, if we could only wait for a few million years. Some paraphrases of the problem even forget to mention the "eventually" or "infinite" part and say that you just need "a million monkeys for a million years". In fact, even if you replaced every atom in the universe with a monkey and a typewriter, and they all typed a thousand characters per second, the odds of their producing ''[[Hamlet]]'' (as well as the odds of any other specific text of the same length) within an octillion octillion years are still incomprehensibly ''low''. However, such huge quantities of monkeys and time are no match for '''infinity''', which is where the magic happens.

 

 

Robert Wilensky complemented this with the statement that "Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." See also The [[wikipedia:Infinite monkey theorem|Other]] [[wikipedia:Infinite monkey theorem in popular culture|Wiki]].

 

{{examples}}

* From ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'': After Arthur and Ford are rescued from virtually certain death from asphyxiation in interstellar space, there is a sequence of bizarrely improbable events on board the ship that rescued them—because the ship is powered by the Infinite Improbability Generator. One of these events is Arthur and Ford being approached by "an infinite number of monkeys who want to talk to us about this script for ''Hamlet'' they've worked out."

* ''[[Paper Towns]]''. Q to Ben: "Getting you a date to prom is so hard that a thousand monkeys typing at a thousand typewriters for a thousand years would never once type ''I will go to prom with Ben.''

* Done by the Goliath Corporation in the ''[[Thursday Next]]'' books, but they considerably improve the odds by using (imperfect) clones of Shakespeare instead of monkeys.

* In ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', one of the absurd inventions created by the [[Cloudcuckoolander|Laputan]] [[TV Genius|intellectuals]] is a device for randomly combining words so that "the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study".

 

* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' episode "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S20/E03 Mawdryn Undead|Mawdryn Undead]]", the Doctor and Tegan discuss this trope as it applies to "a treeful of monkeys".

{{quote|'''Doctor''': You and I both know, at the end of a millennium they'd still be tapping out gibberish.

'''Tegan''': And you'd be right there tapping it out with them. }}

* In ''[[Veronica Mars]]'', Veronica gets hauled into the police station for questioning about the death of "Curly" Moran, who she thinks she's never heard of. When she realizes that she actually does know him—in a seemingly totally different context—she [[Lemony Narrator|thinks]]:

* ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' has a segment about how many different monkeys it takes to produce different authors' works. Apparently it's a million monkeys typing for all eternity to get Shakespeare, ten thousand drunk monkeys typing for ten thousand years to get [[Ernest Hemingway|Hemingway]], and ten monkeys for three days to get [[Dan Brown]].

* In one episode of ''[[Muppets Tonight]]'', we learn that the show's scripters are actual Muppet monkeys, mindlessly pounding at typewriters going "Ook-ack-ook!". Once they come up with a satisfactory script, Kermit lets them [[2001: A Space Odyssey|go touch the monolith]].

{{quote|"On Time Team tonight, we're in Stratford on Avon, where we've uncovered loads of monkey skeletons and some typewriters."}}

 

* The band Chumbawumba were supposedly named after a word typed by a monkey when somebody actually tried to do this in real life.

 

* In ''[[Dilbert]]'':

** The title character writes a poem, and Dogbert says something along the lines of "You know, an infinite number of monkeys in an infinite amount of time could type out the complete works of Shakespeare. Your poem? Three monkeys, ten minutes."

** Another joke was "if you take an infinite number of monkeys on typewriters and give them an infinite amount of time, sooner or later you'll have a room full of dead monkeys. Turns out monkeys need feeding."

 

* ''[[The Ricky Gervais Show]]'' has a segment in which Karl refuses to believe that the monkeys can ever actually write anything, so stubbornly that Ricky ends up storming out on him.

 

 

* The entire plot of the one-act play "Words, Words, Words", belonging to the collection ''All in The Timing'', by David Ives, although for practical reasons it only uses three.

 

* The "Infinite Monkeys" arc of ''[[Goats]]''.

 

 

{{quote|This is a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters. Soon they will have written the greatest novel known to man. ''(takes paper)'' Let's see..." It was the best of times, it was the '''blurst''' of times!?!" You stupid monkey!}}

** Also from the episode, "Children of a Lesser Clod."

* In ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', "Cliptastic Countdown" combines this with [[Who Writes This Crap?]]. Major Monogram demands who wrote the lines, to which Carl the intern replies, "Agent M, sir." We then see a monkey in a fedora at a typewriter, causing Dr. Doofenshmirtz to complain how [[What Are Records?|none of the kids watching will know what a typewriter is]]. Monogram tries to excuse it by say it was cheaper that way, but Doof just continues ranting on the point that they would have to find a typewriter from an antiques dealer.

 

* This was actually tried in the Paignton Zoo in Devon in 2002, where six macaques were given free access to a (protected) computer. Their initial reaction was to pee on it or bash it with a rock; but in time they did start to get the hang of typing. After several months the results were several pages of gibberish, but the letter ''S'' as in ''Shakespeare'' was more prominent than others.

 

{{reflist}}