4 ms·
Yes you will, re-read the law of large numbers. It's not the law of the infinite. An infinite monkeys would produce every finite thing in zero time. The "finit
by iwwr 16y ago
Yes you will, re-read the law of large numbers. It's not the law of the infinite.
An infinite monkeys would produce every finite thing in zero time. The "finite things" including: the full works of Shakespeare, every single other book written or that will be written, all computer memory at any one time. In fact, you could encode the visible universe in a simulation and run it in an instant for any large but finite number of years.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, "infinity is big, you just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is".
- cdavid 16y agoThe OP is right: for any T, however large, you won't be guaranteed that you will get hamlet from a monkey. I don't understand what you mean by the law of large numbers not being the law of infinite: the theorem states the limit of a certain series of random variables, that's by definition about what happens when the number of random variables goes to infinity.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- iwwr 16y agoOK, not guaranteed, but certain within high levels of confidence. Still, with an infinite monkeys you can get all that in an instant.
- Sandman 16y agoNot in an instant - a monkey still needs some amount of time to write Hamlet.
- iwwr 16y agoI mean, an infinite monkeys would need a small (approaching zero) amount of time. An alternate way to say it: "An infinite, ordered set of monkeys each pressing exactly one key would produce the entire works of Shakespeare in at least one uninterrupted string that preserves that order."