One of the most unusual studies in the history of mathematics was conducted by scientists from the University of Plymouth in England. In experiment, six crested macaques from the Painton zoo participated. From May 1 to June 22, 2002, the keyboard was provided to these animals, and their random clicks were transferred to the Internet. The aim of the study was to check the “Theorem of Endless Monks”: the statement that the monkey that accidentally prints on the keyboard will eventually print any text, including Shakespeare’s works.
However, the results were far from expected. For more than seven weeks, the macaques printed only one five-page document, almost completely consisting of the letter “S”. This result was published in the form of books.
Although the experiment did not refute the theorem about endless monkeys, it showed that monkeys are not ideal candidates for generating a random text. The theorem, proposed by the mathematician Emil Borel in 1913, uses monkeys as a metaphor to illustrate the theory of probability. The ideas underlying the theorem are much older. In ancient times, the Roman philosopher and politician Mark Tullius Cicero wrote that even if you throw a large number of letters to the ground, they are unlikely to form the text of an epic poem.
An example with the macaques from the zoo Paynton demonstrates that mathematicians are taking creative steps to study this issue. Modern studies show that, unlike Cicero, poems can arise from chance if you have enough time.
The probability of a specific word
For simplicity, we will consider the likelihood of an accidental appearance of the word “Banana” when typing letters. If you press six keys in a row, the likelihood that the word “Banana” is obtained is (1/52)^6, which is approximately equal to five billion percent. This makes the appearance of the word extremely unlikely. But if you increase the number of presses, the probability of the appearance of the word increases.
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