Australian mathematicians have debunked the theorem suggesting that if a monkey were given infinite time with a typewriter, it would eventually produce all of Shakespeare’s works.

Scientists calculated that even if all 200,000 chimpanzees on Earth were made immortal and typed continuously, they still wouldn’t complete Shakespeare’s works before the end of the universe. They based their calculations on the prediction that our universe will cease to exist in a googol years (a number with 100 zeros) according to the heat death theory. Moreover, they didn’t take into account how these typing monkeys would survive the Sun’s eventual engulfment of Earth, expected to happen in a few billion years.

The mathematicians noted that a single chimpanzee would only have a 5% chance of typing the word “banana” in its lifetime. And the probability of a monkey producing a coherent sentence like “I am a chimpanzee, therefore I exist” is one in 10 million billion billion. Shakespeare’s complete works, in comparison, contain 884,647 words.

So, while the theorem holds true in abstract mathematics, it is misleading, as it’s practically unachievable due to the constraints of our actual universe.

#Mathematics #science #MonkeyTheorem