Current Events > Do you believe the thousand typewriters theory?

(+) Yeah! (+)

That a thousand typewriters working 24 hours a day typing random buttons will, given enough time, eventually create literary genius.
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Duncanwii posted...

typing random buttons

Yes.
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On a long enough timeline, yes it probably would happen.

But I guess we might never know. Animal rights groups probably wouldn't like it, anyway.

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I thought it was supposed to be an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters
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Eventually it would happen. Would take like thousands of years probably.
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averagejoel posted...

I thought it was supposed to be an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters

If there's an infinite amount, the novel would occur instantly.
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no. it needs to be a million typewriters with a million monkeys.
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Well, I think the statement is usually infinite typewriters, but the point is that every possible work would coincide with one random string of N typewriter characters. So given infinite time, random input will eventually type out a master work, even if strings are repeated.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no_elVGGgW8
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CapnMuffin posted...

averagejoel posted...

I thought it was supposed to be an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters

If there's an infinite amount, the novel would occur instantly.

Well not instantly, but it would happen in the shortest timeframe with which a monkey could type keys on a typewriter.
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There's a huge difference between infinite time and a "very long" long. Even if those thousand typewriters started typing at the moment of the Big Bang, they likely wouldn't have come close to replicating a single novel that exists today.
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CapnMuffin posted...

If there's an infinite amount, the novel would occur instantly.

The novel would be started instantly but it would still take as long as it takes to type it out.
But with infinite typewriters, an infinite about of those novels would be written.
But also an infinite amount of shitty ones that seem like fan fiction with Mary Sue characters.
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1000 may as well be 1. it's a first degree calculus problem. increase your number of typewriters, decrease time taken.

1 may as well be 1000, may as well be 100,000. you'd need about a trillion typewriters to get it done in a lifetime.

Naysaspace posted...

you'd need about a trillion typewriters to get it done in a lifetime

No. It would take trillions of typewriters trillions on trillions of planets, in trillions of galaxies, for of lifetimes in trillions of multiverses. And then multiple that by arbitrarily large numbers.

Here's a video on 256 bit hashes on the likelihood of guessing one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9JGmA5_unY

And a full novel is much, much, much larger than a 256 bit hash.
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you wouldn't ever get a novel

you would just have infinite gibberish


adding time doesn't make magic work

"hmm if I slam my keyboard for hours it will write a book!"
oh didn't work

"what if I did it for millions of years!"

this is called magic, and magic is not real


throwing time on it won't force the chaos to suddenly become ordered


maybe you could get a few jumbled words

even possibly a terribly written sentence with mispellings


but not a book, no paragraph
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it could never happen. always thought the saying was stupid
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Probability is not magic.
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CapnMuffin posted...

Probability is not magic.

and that is why this won't work
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A book is a combination of letters just like any other, why wouldn't it be possible given infinite time?

The hard part would be sifting the story out of the infinite amount of gibberish that would also be typed
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Duncanwii posted...

That a thousand typewriters working 24 hours a day typing random buttons will, given enough time, eventually create literary genius.

Not in fact, but it's an interesting theory, like The Waffle House Index.

http://www.jesse-anderson.com/2011/10/a-few-million-monkeys-randomly-recreate-every-work-of-shakespeare/
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tote_all posted...

The Admiral posted...

Even if those thousand typewriters started typing at the moment of the Big Bang, they likely wouldn't have come close to replicating a single novel that exists today.

ITP DNA is less complex than novels.

A lot more than 1000 "typewriters" were working on DNA since the big bang
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tote_all posted...

ITP DNA is less complex than novels.

DNA is arranged through the process of evolution guided by natural selection, not random orders each time. What the fuck are you talking about?


Edit If there was any guiding forcing in novel creation, we'd get novels a lot quicker than shear guessing . . . like in reality. Where we have novels, god fucking damn you CE.
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ChromaticAngel posted...

tote_all posted...

The Admiral posted...

Even if those thousand typewriters started typing at the moment of the Big Bang, they likely wouldn't have come close to replicating a single novel that exists today.

ITP DNA is less complex than novels.

A lot more than 1000 "typewriters" were working on DNA since the big bang

usually when the theorem is stated, it's an infinite number of monkeys
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Anarchy_Juiblex posted...

tote_all posted...

ITP DNA is less complex than novels.

DNA is arranged through the process of evolution guided by natural selection, not random orders each time. What the fuck are you talking about?


Edit If there was any guiding forcing in novel creation, we'd get novels a lot quicker than shear guessing . . . like in reality. Where we have novels, god fucking damn you CE.

lol true
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COVxy posted...

http://www.jesse-anderson.com/2011/10/a-few-million-monkeys-randomly-recreate-every-work-of-shakespeare/

/topic
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darkphoenix181 posted...

CapnMuffin posted...

Probability is not magic.

and that is why this won't work

I'm not sure I agree with you.

Your claim is "maybe a few words" but my question is why stop there? What's the arbitrary amount of words random over infinite can create? If anything, subjectively deciding on a cap on that is magic. Not the novel.
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fenderbender321 posted...

It could theoretically happen, but I don't think it would even come close to making 1 page of legible anything much less literary genius in even 1000000000000000000000 years.

It was already done multiple times but ok
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CapnMuffin posted...

What's the arbitrary amount of words random over infinite can create?

You won't get an answer to this.
No one would deny they could write something like "the man" or "monkey" or even this sentence, but I think the issue is that a lot of people struggle with the idea that monkeys are just a metaphor for random, whereas they are being overly literal and think that monkeys couldn't and wouldn't process a truly random set of characters. Monkeys might have a bias for spaces or Z or something.
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It was the blurst of times
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darkphoenix181 posted...

you wouldn't ever get a novel

you would just have infinite gibberish


adding time doesn't make magic work

"hmm if I slam my keyboard for hours it will write a book!"
oh didn't work

"what if I did it for millions of years!"

this is called magic, and magic is not real


throwing time on it won't force the chaos to suddenly become ordered


maybe you could get a few jumbled words

even possibly a terribly written sentence with mispellings


but not a book, no paragraph

Somebody doesn't know what "infinite" means.
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