The ‘Infinite Monkey Theorem’ suggests that if an infinite number of monkeys were given typewriters, they would eventually produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. In 2003, this theory was tested by putting a computer inside a primates zoo enclosure for a month. They bashed it with a rock, took a crap on it, and typed 5 pages of mostly the letter ‘S’. SourceSource 2
This is an upsettingly gross misrepresentation of what is actually an incredibly interesting and contentious thought experiment, which actually reads something more like, “If a monkey was given an infinite amount of time, it would with certainty reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.”
First of all, I don’t purport to be a mathematician by any means. However, I think most people can appreciate and ponder what is actually at the heart of this theorem: that if there were some device that could produce a random string of characters (the monkey) for an infinite amount of time, order would arise from the randomness through sheer coincidence in ways that we would think incredibly improbable.
That’s why this one really gets me thinking.
Put another way, if the universe were infinite, and if matter were evenly dispersed throughout it, would a clone of me have occurred somewhere else through sheer coincidence? Infinite clones?
It really makes you at least try to grapple with the concept of infinity, because we’re not just talking about a really big number, like a googolplex, we’re talking about neverending forever. Does everything possible become certain in such an environment?
There’s a lot of directions to go in here, such as the nature of infinity, probability, and coincidence, but I hope this small addendum helps to at least do this topic more justice.