It's well known that an infinite number of monkeys will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@PsySal This is a good question and according to wikipedia the answer is technically "no". But informally I feel like people use monkeys as a shorthand for what is more properly called simians?

[leon@peoplemaking.games]

@mcc it just occurred to me that the phrase “producing the works of Shakespeare”, since the works of Shakespeare are all plays, actually demands the role of stage producer rather than typist in its most natural reading

I am very certain that the chance of successfully stage-producing a single Shakespeare play falls dramatically as the number of producers backstage increases, and that’s the best case scenario of them being literate humans.

[bonehousewasps@beige.party]

@mcc More than a few. But less than 'infinite'. In fact, compared to 'infinite' , it might as well be 'one'.

One monkey.

"So why couldn't that one monkey have been you?" - my mother.

[jsit@social.coop]

@mcc @thattommyhall I remember learning this when I learned that Curious George doesn’t have a tail and is therefore most likely a “curious little ape,” not “monkey.”

[yuki@im-in.space]

@mcc One

Let me point you to the multiple horse theory, but I have the conjecture it also applies to monkeys

Maybe there's even only one horse-monkey

This is to be determined

https://multiplehorsetheory.com/

[ellenor2000@mastodon.top]

@Yuki @mcc Horrifying #lang_en

[mcc@mastodon.social]

@Yuki the existence of one (1) horse-monkey would significantly upset evolutionary theory, i'd say

[cinebox@masto.hackers.town]

@mcc William Shakespeare was an ape… unless he had a tail we don’t know about

[stereo@sunbeam.city]

@mcc n monkeys (1 per year) seems unlikely so maybe n² monkeys (1 in the first year, 2 in the second, etc.) for about a quadrillion monkeys

[doephin@kind.social]

@mcc Minimum bound though; we could have gotten an outlier result

[russellsbarbershopquartet@monads.online]

@mcc using overly generous estimates, let's assume a median number of a thousand extant simian species at any given year, a median simian population of 1 million individuals per species per generation, and a median generation time of 10 years. Atliatlassius is a fine enough spot to start the clock, which i'll round to 60 million years in the interest of conservatism and keeping only one sig fig.

so that gives 6 * 10⁶ * 10⁶ * 10³ / 10¹ = 6 * 10^14, or a lower bound of 600,000,000,000,000, or a mere 600 quadrillion monkeys, as a conservative lower bound.

edit: fix typo and clarify simians, not all primates, which would probably add another zero.

[gparker@discuss.systems]

@mcc @thattommyhall yeah, in my experience biologists don't use a cladistic or monophyletic definition of "monkey". So a typical biologist would say that humans are primates and simians and apes, but are not monkeys.

[muddle@infosec.exchange]

@mcc LEAN in, sister.

[benjamin@piaille.fr]

@mcc interesting theory.
Knowing how fast sapiens monkeys grew in number the last 200years I'd say not more than 20 billions.
Which is far from an infinite number of monkeys, very reassuring

[estelle@mstdn.social]

@Yuki @mcc if gold ship can cost japanese gamblers 12 billion yen in a single race, then if there is only one horse, you better make sure you bet on the right horse

[itohsnap@mastodon.social]

@mcc I’d argue this an equivalent thesis/proof proposal:
“It’s well known that an infinite number of rolls of a D20 will eventually result in a 20 being rolled. […] I just rolled a D20 and got a 20 on my first attempt*. Therefore the number of rolls to produce a 20 is no more than one.”

*my old D&D group knows this is a lie but roll** with me here
**lol

[itohsnap@mastodon.social]

@mcc Methinks this is actually calculating the number of monkeys(/simians) it took for *this particular* (uh) simulation to produce the works of Shakespeare, not an overall upper bound.

(Apologies if I’m being pedantic and/or a killjoy; hope you feel better soon.)

[davidtheeviloverlord@mastodon.social]

@Yuki @mcc

Would a horse-monkey evolve into a centaur?

[davidtheeviloverlord@mastodon.social]

@mcc @Yuki

The ancestor of the centaur?

Wait, you'd need at least two horse-monkeys, and some monkey business, before evolving centaurs.

[oblomov@snowfan.it]

@doephin @mcc not even minimum bound though. Following @itohsnap D20 comparison, if I rolled a 20 on the 5th roll, that wouldn't tell me that the minimum bounds on the number of rolls to get a 20 is 5.