Sunday, March 22, 2009

Given an infinite number of monkeys...

Re: the Cheeta post below, I am aware of that time-honored philosophic theory of chance... if you give an infinite number of moneys an infinite number of typewriters, they will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare.

Recently, researchers at Plymouth University in England conducted an experiment sponsored by the Arts Council there. To simplify the expected miracle, researchers gave six monkeys one computer for one month, then, eagerly awaited the results.

Eventually, the monkeys produced only five pages of text, filled mostly with the letter S with a few A's, J's, L's and M's thrown in. What researchers did seem to prove is that the monkeys were more "interested in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard."

I'm anxious to see the scientific paper on this one.

And while we are on the 'scientific animal discovery in England' post, a recent Reuters headline said "Maggots no wonder cure for festering wounds," which led to the conclusion, "Putting flesh-eating maggots into open wounds may not be such a great idea after all."

1 comment:

  1. Six monkeys, huh? Now we know where all the spam comes from. ;)

    ReplyDelete