this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 111 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (13 children)

The entire thing is utterly ridiculous. The meme is infinite monkeys.

The mathematician said, "But what if it was 200k monkeys?"

Reporters claim mathematician proved infinite monkeys meme is wrong.

200,000 does not equal infinite!

[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 36 points 1 week ago (7 children)

The whole thing is dumb if you accept a premise of "infinite monkeys". An infinite number of monkeys will type the works of shakespeare immediately, because an infinite number of them will start with the very first key they hit and continue until the end. (So it'll be complete exactly as fast as a monkey can type it, typing as fast as simianly possible, with no mistakes.) You don't even need the infinite time.

It only becomes interesting if you look at the finite scenarios.

And BTW, the lifespan of the universe is finite due to the eventual decay of all matter, including the monkeys and the typewriters. There's no infinite time.

[–] srecko@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The whole thing is dumb if you accept a premise of "infinite monkeys".

If thats the point where you want to draw the line, I guess that it becomes dumb at exactly that point.

But the point of the thought experiment is that it says what you said: it will definitelly happen because infinity is absurdly big number.

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