If a scientist gives a typewriter to some monkeys and they type at random for an infinite amount of time, it will necessarily happen that they will write any work of universal literature or even write a better one. This hypothetical scenario, known as the infinite monkey theorem, is a mathematical and philosophical exercise used to discuss the nature of randomness that fascinated minds like Jorge Luis Borges.
The most certain thing, however, is that we will never see a monkey write Hamlet, no matter how much time we give it, because the universe we inhabit has a limited useful lifespan. Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta, two mathematicians from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), carried out a probability exercise to obtain an approximation of the time it would take the monkeys to create a Shakespeare play under the principles indicated by the theorem.
The newsroom will get cold before finishing the text
The calculation does not bring good news. Even if they all worked at the same time, The current number of monkeys on Earth would not be enough to finish a great literary work before of the probable scenario of the heat death of the universe.
The calculations of the UTS team, published in the scientific journal Franklin Openmake two key assumptions: each monkey used would have a 30-key machine and could only type once per second.
The scientists found that simple phrases like “banana” would be the only well-formed ones the monkeys could produce in their lifetime. “From this, we can see that all but the most trivial sentences would almost certainly never occur during the lifetime of our universe. There are many orders of magnitude difference between the expected number of keys that should be pressed randomly before Shakespeare’s plays are played and the number of keystrokes until the universe collapses into thermodynamic equilibrium,” the document states.
In the graph they made, the value one represents a death of the universe. Scientists say that “several orders of magnitude” are needed because at least five ranges of the same time are required to approach the long-awaited Shakespere text with approximately 800,000 coherent words from random typing.
What does the theory of heat death say?
The heat death theory is just one of the many ways scientists estimate the universe will end. This idea mentions that in a range of between 10^100 and 10^1000 years in the future, the universe will reach a state of thermal equilibrium, where the entropy will be uniform throughout the universe and there will be no energy gradients that can make any difference. useful work.
From here, there are two scenarios within the theory of heat death. In one, the universe will cool as stars go out and energy sources run out. In the other, energy is distributed evenly, so in no region of space will there be enough energy to create a cosmic event.
#long #monkeys #world #write #Shakespeare #play
