Infinite monkeys and typewriters (thought experiments)

[Sherringford Hovis]

If you only had one monkey and one typewriter

Brendan O'Chimpell knocked out an entire series of Mrs Brown's Boys before noon and buggered off down the Bunch of Bananas for a lunchtime pint.

[Dewt]

"Pi has every combination of numbers in it and therefore all illegal data can be found inside of it" annoys me because pi has not actually been proven to be a normal number. Given that there are examples of normal numbers that you could say this about, it's especially dumb because people are making this claim about pi that isn't true but nobody cares because pi is so fucking famous and I've killed men, did you know? Sliced in half and videotaped it, for pleasure!

[KennyMonster]

Given infinite time, would monkeys create the Animated Shakespeare series that was made in the early 90s?

Just so you know, all the necessary equipment is in the room with them, but once it's wrecked it's wrecked.  And there are no adults in there teaching them about persistence of vision or anything.

Right, I see, no adults huh?

You've got children in this cage to train these Monkies have you?

You're as bad as Trump!

[Replies From View]

Right, I see, no adults huh?

You've got children in this cage to train these Monkies have you?

You're as bad as Trump!

All other methods of training will end up costing me infinity pounds.  You need people who don't understand about money and lack the experience to appreciate that life doesn't normally entail teaching some monkeys to adapt Shakespeare's plays into twelve half-hour cartoons using all the animation styles.

[Ambient Sheep]

I could be wrong, as it's years since I read up about all this, but...

The infinity of even numbers, the infinity of odd and even numbers (all integers) are both, counter-intuitively, the same infinity (Aleph-0).  As is the infinity of rational numbers, the infinity of prime numbers and many other things.  They are all countable infinities.

Then there are the uncountable infinities (which I always thought were called Aleph-2*, but I can find little mention of that on a quick search) which, IIRC, includes the infinity of irrational numbers.

I expect pancreas or Blodders or someone who has done more maths than reading Gödel, Escher and Bach and the like 30 years ago, can do better.


_{* - and this really sticks in my head as I always wondered what Aleph-1 was... all the reading I ever did mentioned 0 and 2 but not 1.  Wiki explains Aleph-1 but I'm not sure I understand it!  Doesn't mention Aleph-2 at all which has left me sorely confused and having a Mandela moment.}

[Replies From View]

Ha, reading Gödel, Escher, Bach 20 years ago is the limit of my knowledge of this, too!

[idunnosomename]

You cant have an infinite number of monkeys or typewriters.

Fuck thought experiments. Except where you throw a fat cunt off a bridge to stop a wayward trolley. Thems larks

[phantom_power]

Given infinite time, would monkeys create the Animated Shakespeare series that was made in the early 90s?

Just so you know, all the necessary equipment is in the room with them, but once it's wrecked it's wrecked.  And there are no adults in there teaching them about persistence of vision or anything.

Are we talking about an infinite number of monkeys?

[Replies From View]

Are we talking about an infinite number of monkeys?

May as well be.  I'm not increasing the floor space without raising the rent though.

[C_Larence]

Women who only have sons are the first woman in their entire direct (i.e. not including aunts) maternal lineage to not give birth to a girl. Or something like that.

[Dewt]

I could be wrong, as it's years since I read up about all this, but...

The infinity of even numbers, the infinity of odd and even numbers (all integers) are both, counter-intuitively, the same infinity (Aleph-0).  As is the infinity of rational numbers, the infinity of prime numbers and many other things.  They are all countable infinities.

Then there are the uncountable infinities (which I always thought were called Aleph-2*, but I can find little mention of that on a quick search) which, IIRC, includes the infinity of irrational numbers.

I expect pancreas or Blodders or someone who has done more maths than reading Gödel, Escher and Bach and the like 30 years ago, can do better.

I'm not sure that relates to a number being normal or not, though. It could get to a point and just start going "171177111777111177771111177777111111777777" into infinity.

I'll quote some popular science fluff so I don't have to explain what I'm complaining about: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pi-meme-misleading-mathematical-constant_n_3056299

The point by Dr. Steven Stroganoff is what I'm getting at.

[Consignia]

Real Monkey's probably won't produce Shakespeare, as they like to type "S" more than any other key.

This isn't LOLRANDOM, by the way. It's real study and you can see the results here: https://web.archive.org/web/20130120215600/http://www.vivaria.net/experiments/notes/publication/NOTES_EN.pdf

[Danger Man]

Except where you throw a fat cunt off a bridge

Bit harsh on ambient sheep

[thenoise]

I could be wrong, as it's years since I read up about all this, but...

The infinity of even numbers, the infinity of odd and even numbers (all integers) are both, counter-intuitively, the same infinity (Aleph-0).  As is the infinity of rational numbers, the infinity of prime numbers and many other things.  They are all countable infinities.

Then there are the uncountable infinities (which I always thought were called Aleph-2*, but I can find little mention of that on a quick search) which, IIRC, includes the infinity of irrational numbers.

I expect pancreas or Blodders or someone who has done more maths than reading Gödel, Escher and Bach and the like 30 years ago, can do better.


_{* - and this really sticks in my head as I always wondered what Aleph-1 was... all the reading I ever did mentioned 0 and 2 but not 1.  Wiki explains Aleph-1 but I'm not sure I understand it!  Doesn't mention Aleph-2 at all which has left me sorely confused and having a Mandela moment.}

Correct. Basically infinities are the same size if you can 'assign' elements of one group to the elements of another.

So natural numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, .....
Even numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8, .....

There is a 1 - 1 map from natural numbers from even numbers ( x each one by 2), so they must be the same size.
But there is no 1 - 1 map between the continuum (i.e. Real number line) and natural numbers.

There is a 1 - 1 map between the infinite continuum and the continuum between 0 and 1 though.

And there are higher alephs too representing higher degree of infinity. They are, and I'm being technical here, very big indeed.

[Dewt]

But I want it to be very clear that none of that applies to whether a number is normal or not. CaB is an important centre of mathematics research and we must be accurate on these matters.

And you are talking about sets not individual constants

just realised you were probably talking about infinite monkeys and not pi

pancreas please come here, the more I write the more likely I am to be embarrassingly wrong

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Enough monkeys with typewriters, you'll get comedy nearly as bad as Chubby Brown's.

[Default to the negative]

Enough monkeys with typewriters, you'll get comedy nearly as bad as Chubby Brown's.

Moonkehs and typewritahs? Ah'll tell ya this, split-arse. Yew set some fookin moonkehs down with typewritahs and yer as likely to get the musings of Chinua Achebe as yew are to get a fookin spear in the back!

CONCERNED JOURNO VOICE: I found some of Chubby's jokes amusing. But the people in the audience were applauding, not laughing, and the show seemed to take on the tone of a political rally.

[Danger Man]

pancreas please come here, the more I write the more likely I am to be embarrassingly wrong

Pancreas has been bummed an infinite number of times.

Hmmm.....cheeky post or offensive?  Will only know when I hit the button.

[PlanktonSideburns]

We'll  know when we see the avatar!

[BlodwynPig]

The idea of a society composed of an infinite number of monkeys is a non-starter, frankly. It's just too many.

There are as many monkeys between 0 and 1 as infinite monkeys

[BlodwynPig]

I could be wrong, as it's years since I read up about all this, but...

The infinity of even numbers, the infinity of odd and even numbers (all integers) are both, counter-intuitively, the same infinity (Aleph-0).  As is the infinity of rational numbers, the infinity of prime numbers and many other things.  They are all countable infinities.

Then there are the uncountable infinities (which I always thought were called Aleph-2*, but I can find little mention of that on a quick search) which, IIRC, includes the infinity of irrational numbers.

I expect pancreas or Blodders or someone who has done more maths than reading Gödel, Escher and Bach and the like 30 years ago, can do better.


_{* - and this really sticks in my head as I always wondered what Aleph-1 was... all the reading I ever did mentioned 0 and 2 but not 1.  Wiki explains Aleph-1 but I'm not sure I understand it!  Doesn't mention Aleph-2 at all which has left me sorely confused and having a Mandela moment.}

Yeh, im not that type, but in Canada my student regaled me with all sorts of mathematical trivia and theory. In one of the courses i took we needed Cantor set theory that necessarily required some understanding of set theory and the concept of infinity.

[Danger Man]

There are as many monkeys between 0 and 1 as infinite monkeys

[BlodwynPig]

There are as many gifs of this imprinted on the frontal lobe of a 767 AD chimp as infinite Birds Eye Potato Waffles inside Su Pollards discarded raincoat on Mars

[Default to the negative]

The complication is that a monkey, left to his own devices, will find an infinite amount of other things to do. Show a typewriter to a monkey and he will glare at you, momentarily perplexed, before he ambles off and monkeys around the room.

If you want writing then you need to have that monkey on bridle and chain, under the whip hand, forcing his every letter out.

[bgmnts]

But its an infinite amount of time and an infinite amount of monkeys.


So an infinite amount of them will be perplexed and an infinite amount of them would be riveted.

The only issue is would the bored ones flinging their shit around and climbing on each other distract the dilligent typists?

[touchingcloth]

But its an infinite amount of time and an infinite amount of monkeys.


So an infinite amount of them will be perplexed and an infinite amount of them would be riveted.

The only issue is would the bored ones flinging their shit around and climbing on each other distract the dilligent typists?

It's actually infinity monkeys.

[honeychile]

Not sure what Jonathan King has to do with any of this.

[Dewt]

Are the monkeys normal?

[Default to the negative]

Are the monkeys normal?

They are abnormal winged monkeys. Sorcerer's familiars, if you will.

[Blumf]

Are the monkeys normal?

They are in a Gaussian distribution, yes.