Two Australian mathematicians have questioned an old motto: If a monkey is given an infinite amount of time to press keys on a typewriter, at one point, it will finish writing all of William Shakespeare’s works.
The “infinite monkey theorem” has been used for a long time to explain principles based on probability and randomness, according to BBC.
However, a study led by Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falleta from Sydney has revealed that the time it would take for a monkey to type all of the works of Shakespeare including plays, sonnets and poems, would be greater than the lifespan of the universe we live in.
The researchers say that the theorem is mathematically true but it is also “misleading”.
Aside from looking at the abilities of a single monkey, the research group also conducted a series of calculations based on the population of chimpanzees in the world, which is over 200,000 monkeys.
The study concluded that even if every single chimpanzee were enlisted to type at a pace of one key per second until our universe comes to an end, they wouldn’t be able to complete typing the English author’s works.
The research further indicated that there is only a 5% chance of a chimp typing out the word “bananas” in their lifetime and the probability rate of one single chimp writing a sentence such as “I chimp, therefore I am” is 10 million billion billion.
“It is not plausible that, even with improved typing speeds or an increase in chimpanzee populations, monkey labour will ever be a viable tool for developing non-trivial written works,” the study says.
