They say if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room with a bunch of typewriters, they would eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. I don't think that's true. Think about it: even if you could gather up all the monkeys in the world, I doubt even one of them would be familiar enough with that archaic English to write even one of those plays or sonnets.
(I'm pretty sure they could come up with the complete archives of my blog, though.)
Posted by christin at December 5, 2004 08:59 PMSomeone actually tried this a while back. Basically the monkeys urinated on the computers and beat them with rocks and such....
Posted by: Valerie (Kyriosity) at December 6, 2004 12:54 PMSee? The thing you gots to remember about monkeys is this: they aren't all they're cracked up to be. Therefore, it stands to reason that they could reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare - being that they too are not all they're cracked up to be.
Posted by: The Dane at December 6, 2004 05:09 PMShakespeare, Shmakespeare, but don't be hatin' monkeys.
Posted by: Christin at December 6, 2004 08:29 PMOh no, I think the world of monkeys. For certain tasks. They rock at producing antics, but as far as oratory, political prowess, and flavour, they ain't all they're cracked up to be.
Posted by: The Dane at December 6, 2004 09:10 PMThere is a theory that 'Shakespeare' was just a psuedonym for a room full of monkeys with typewriters. Also, when he had to be onstage, Shakespeare was a puppet operated by a room full of monkeys.
Posted by: Patrick at December 13, 2004 02:02 PMWilson claims that the Internet disproves that theory.
Posted by: Robbie at December 14, 2004 05:39 PMHey, I said they could come up with my blog...that's not too shabby, huh?
Posted by: Christin at December 14, 2004 09:40 PM"Calculating the actual number of permutations of a line of print, at 50 letters per line, 40 lines to the page, with an average book length of 350 pages in the 700,000 books in the British Museum in Huxley’s time, cyberneticist David Foster concluded: ‘Huxley was hopelessly wrong in stating that six monkeys allowed enormous time would randomly type all the books in the British Museum when in fact they could only type half a line of one book if they typed for the duration of the universe’." (1)
Huxley made the claim. Mr. Foster concluded it was impossible.
Carl, "The 'Grub Street' Plumber."
(1) Fred Heeren, “Show me God,” Daystar Publications, vol. 1, 1997, p. 68, Copyright Fred Heeren
Posted by: Carl at December 26, 2004 12:04 AM