Chimps will never write the works of Shakespeare, even if given an eternity
CHIMPS will never write the works of William Shakespeare even if given an eternity, probability experts have shown.
The primates are not even remotely likely to bash out a coherent sentence.
And there is just a five per cent chance one could write “bananas” in its lifetime, they concluded.
It means even if all the 200,000 chimps in the world typed a letter a second until the end of the universe in 100trillion years they would have no chance of replicating the Bard’s 885,000 words.
Mathematician Professor Stephen Woodcock said: “It’s not even like one in a million.
“If every atom in the universe was a universe in itself, it still wouldn’t happen.”
The Australian researchers were testing the infinite monkey theorem which says a primate randomly pressing keys could, by chance, type out every play and poem by the Bard.
Professor Woodcock said: “This finding places the theorem among other probability puzzles and paradoxes.
“Using the idea of infinite resources gives results that don’t match up with what we get when we consider the constraints of our universe.”
“It’s not even like one in a million.
“If every atom in the universe was a universe in itself, it still wouldn’t happen.”