Could a monkey type out Shakespeare with unlimited time? Scientists weigh in
It’s a midsummer’s pipe dream.
Chimpanzees might be capable of human speech— but they can’t ape our literary prowess.
Australian scientists have disproven the theory that a monkey could eventually type out the works of Shakespeare if they had all the time in the world.
The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal “Franklin Open,” asserts that the universe would end before the primates punched out the prose of the Bard on a typewriter.
The research, helmed by mathematicians Professor Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta from the University of Technology Sydney, set out to mathematically examine the Infinite Monkey Theorem — oft-considered the ultimate test of probability and randomness, Science Alert reported.
This thought experiment asserts that if infinite simians get a typewriter and unlimited time, they will eventually write out the works of William Shakespeare by sheer chance.
Chimp movie star Kokomo Jr. in 1957. “It’s not even like one in a million,” said mathematician Stephen Woodcock while discussing whether chimps could type Shakespeare if given all the time in the world. “If every atom in the universe was a universe in itself, it still wouldn’t happen.” NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images
“The Infinite Monkey Theorem only considers the infinite limit, with either an infinite number of monkeys or an infinite time period of monkey labor,” Woodcock explains.
To test if this theory was bananas, Woodcock’s team examined “the probability of a given string of letters being typed by a finite number of monkeys within a finite time period consistent with estimates for the lifespan of our Universe.”
Woodcock and Falletta’s calculations were based on differing numbers of “monkeys” between one and 200,000 — the estimated number of chimpanzees on Earth.
Per their math, the monkeys would type on keyboards with varying key counts, hammering at a rate of one keystroke per second for a googol years – the estimated time until the projected heat death of the Universe and also the inspiration for the name of the search engine Google.
By switching up the variables, the arithmetic whizzes managed to calculate what the primates could produce within various windows of time.
A passage from “Hamlet.” Claudio Divizia – stock.adobe.com
What they found was not exactly a tempest in a typewriter.
After crunching the numbers, the researchers concluded that the universe would end long before the Curious Georges could inadvertently bang out the complete works of Shakespeare, the Independent reports.
Even trivial phrases would take an eternity. For reference, one chimp typing on a 30-key keyboard would have a 5 percent chance of writing “bananas” within their lifetime.
The probability of them typing “I chimp therefore I am,” meanwhile, clocked in at approximately one in 10 million billion billion, per the study.
When extrapolated out to the Shakespearan scale, the likelihood of a chimp typing all 900,000 words by the playwright before the apocalypse sits at around 6.4 x 10-7448254 – or, essentially zero.
“It’s not even like one in a million,” Woodcock told the New Scientist. “If every atom in the universe was a universe in itself, it still wouldn’t happen.”
In conclusion, sci-fi fans can toss out any dreams of a “Planet of The Apes”-style society of the future where erudite orangutans recite “Richard III.”
That being said, primates have demonstrated some very human intellectual traits of late.
Over the summer, scientists found that chimpanzees “are capable of” producing sounds that mimic words they hear from people, dispelling prior scholarship stipulating that speech was beyond their “neural circuitry.”
