this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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The question that everyone has been dying to know has been answered. Finally! What will scientists study next?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 minutes ago

That's because they only considered one monkey.

You need a thousand monkeys working at a thousand typewriters.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 56 minutes ago

There was a plank computer post here last couple of days. It showed an atomic sized computer performing one crack attempt every 10^-44 seconds would take a 95 character alphabet 100 years to crack a 121 character password.

Monkeys take up 1m^3. 10^105 bigger than a plank length. Typing 120wpm is 10^43 slower. Ignoring punctuation and spaces and capitalization, a 26 character alphabet allows for about 52 more characters than a 95 character alphabet.

Bottom line, monkeys can't come anywhere close to being able to crack a 100 character password from a 26 character alphabet.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

This is a false flag study to undermine public support for mathematics research!

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

How is this a study? It's just basic probability on a bogo sort style algorithm.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 hour ago

It’s not a “study”, it’s just 2 mathematicians having some fun. The paper is a good read, and as a math teacher I see a lot of pedagogical values in such publications.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 3 hours ago

How is the infinite monkey theorum "misleading". It's got "infinite" in the name. If you're applying constraints based on the size or age of the universe, you are fundamentally misunderstanding the thought experiment.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 hours ago

This sort of study shows you more how mathematicians think than how science or philosophy works.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

How about 4 monkeys in parallel?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Yes, and add an Agile framework. Extreme Monkey typing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

What about monkey AI to get ahead using lower paid monkeys?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 hours ago

Switch to AMD. More monkeys.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

So, while the Infinite Monkey Theorem is true, it is also somewhat misleading.

Is it though? The Monkey Theorem should make it understandable how long infinity really is. That the lifetime of the universe is not long enough is nothing unexpected IMHO, infinity is much (infinitely) longer. And that's what the theorem is about, isn't it?!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Except the lifetime of the universe is quite small when compared to infinity, so it doesn't really convey how large infinity is because it's so much more.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

They don't convey the same information.

Infinity isn't really an amount of something.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
> typeof Infinity
'number'

Riddle me that, smart guy.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

Damn, you just SLAMMED me.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The statement isn't about "A" monkey. It's about an infinite amount of monkeys.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

And an infinite amount of time.

This "rebuttal" is forced contrarianism. It's embarrassing.

A thought experiment has rules, you can't just change them and say the experiment doesn't make sense...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

How would monkeys type through infinite. Don't they stop, are they not mortals like normal monkeys?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

The other part of it is there's not only one monkey who does Hamlet correct on the first attempt, there's two, three four, guess what - an infinite amount of them.

And another infinity that get it right after 5 minutes

Another infinity that take exactly 10 years 3 months 2 days 3 hours 4 minutes and 17 seconds

And another infinity that takes one second less than the life of the universe

And another infinity that takes a googleplex of the lifetime of the universe to complete

that's the point of the thought experiment

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

For what it's worth, it seems like it's this "journalist" trying to make a sensational headline

The researchers themselves very clearly just tried to see if it could happen in our reality

"We decided to look at the probability of a given string of letters being typed by a finite number of monkeys within a finite time period consistent with estimates for the lifespan of our universe,"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

They are, however, exceptionally adept at political speechwriting.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 42 minutes ago)

I always heard that it was an infinite number of monkeys, not just one. So one of them might get the job done in time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

Really, it just takes an infinite amount of monkeys one time.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

This must be a very important question to whoever keeps funding these studies.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times??

You stupid monkey!

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

Their assumptions must be wrong. They do not account for the most basic principle of the universe, "the show must go on."

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 hours ago

Strong entry for an Ig Nobel Prize if nothing else.

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