Regrettably, Monkeys Won't Manage to Pen Down Shakespearean Literature Before the Cosmos Ceases to Exist
The cosmos might expire prior to a monkey producing the entire oeuvre of Shakespeare, as per a recent investigation.
The Eternal Monkey Hypothesis has been a frequently discussed concept implying that a monkey striking keys at random will eventually produce the Bard's entire collection, from The Taming of the Shrew to Sonnet 154. However, a fresh study published in Franklin Open concludes that the hypothesis's conclusion is "correct, but misleading" and that "generating non-trivial text during the lifetime of our universe is almost certainly impossible."
When it comes to keyboard usage, monkeys churn out an infinite amount of meaninglessness (The Merchant of Venice—look it up), yet the principles of probability and randomness would, in time, cause that jumble to transform into written sections. With infinite time, those random keyboard inputs could even reproduce the Bard's finest moments—"to be or not to be," "All the world's a stage," "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day" and so forth.
However, the universe's lifespan—and thus, the end of our known timeframe—is not enough for that to happen, according to the recent research team.
"The Eternal Monkey Hypothesis only considers the infinite limit, whether involving an infinite number of monkeys or an infinite time frame of monkey labor," said Stephen Woodcock, a mathematician at the University of Technology Sydney and the study's lead author, in a university press release. "We decided to investigate the probability of a specific string of letters being typed by a finite number of monkeys within a finite time frame equivalent to estimates for the universe's lifespan."
The team examined chimpanzees as their simian subject instead of every monkey on earth, as chimpanzees are our most closely related ape relatives. They assumed a chimpanzee's "working life" to be around 30 years and set the heat death of the universe to occur 10 years after the experiment's commencement.
The team calculated the results for a single chimpanzee as well as the worldwide chimpanzee population (approximately 200,000), assuming the population would remain constant until the universe's end. The team found a 5% chance that a single ape would type "bananas" during its lifetime. The complete works of Shakespeare presented a different challenge.
"It's highly improbable that, even with potential enhancements in typing speed or an increase in chimpanzee numbers, these orders of magnitude can be achieved to the point where monkey labor will ever be viable for creating written works beyond the trivial," the team wrote. "Thus, we reject the conclusions drawn from the Eternal Monkey Hypothesis as potentially misleading within our finite universe."
The team concludes by stating: "This assessment contradicts one of the most famous pieces of folk mathematics but also places the Eternal Monkey Hypothesis alongside other paradoxes with contradictory results in the finite and infinite cases."
While this doesn't necessarily invalidate the thought experiment, chimpanzees will continue to evolve—give them a few million years, and they might produce a new Shakespeare. Furthermore, thought experiments are primarily used for reasoning exercises rather than attempting to implement a monkey at a keyboard and waiting for a miracle.
Given the current understanding of physics and the estimated lifespan of the universe, it seems unlikely that technological advancements in the future will extend the timeframe needed to generate Shakespeare's complete works through random monkey typing.
The development of advanced AI and computing technology could potentially revolutionize our approach to the 'Eternal Monkey Hypothesis,' but even with such advancements, generating Shakespeare's works within the universe's lifespan remains a significant challenge.
