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Monkeys on a Typewriter: Difference between revisions
"comedy"->"recorded and stand up comedy", spelling, italics on work names
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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.
The point is that the monkeys are flailing at the keys without understanding the point of the machine. Given enough time or enough monkeys, or both, one of them will
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}}
* [[Bob Newhart]] had a comedy routine where this experiment was actually being run, and he was one of the monkey handlers. It ended with, "To be, or not to be? That is the gzornnplat."▼
== Literature ==
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{{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 the ''[[That '70s Show]]'' episode "Battle of the Sexists", after Donna manages to score in a basketball game, Eric yells, "[[Last-Name Basis|Pinciotti]] actually scores! Hell freezes over! A monkey types ''Hamlet''!"
* 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]]:
{{quote|"Somewhere, those million chimps, with their million typewriters, must've written ''King Lear''."}}
* ''[[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]].
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* ''[[Mock the Week]]'' - ''Unlikely Things to hear on a History Documentary''
{{quote|"On Time Team tonight, we're in Stratford on Avon, where we've uncovered loads of monkey skeletons and some typewriters."}}
== Music ==
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== Newspaper Comics ==
* Referenced in a ''[[FoxTrot]]'' strip where Peter gets a program to assemble random letters, his logic being that if you put enough monkeys on typewriters to produce ''Hamlet'', then you can surely use a random letter generator to create a ''Hamlet'' book report. Paige then asks about one page which is even more nonsensical that turns out to have been Peter's attempt.
* 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."
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* ''[[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.
== Recorded and Stand Up Comedy ==
▲* [[Bob Newhart]] had a comedy routine where this experiment was actually being run, and he was one of the monkey handlers. It ended with, "To be, or not to be? That is the gzornnplat."
== Theater ==
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== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', C. Montgomery Burns has a bunch of monkeys at typewriters.
{{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."
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