~ by Brett Abrahamsen
The infinite monkey theorem states that an infinite number of monkeys, at an infinite number of typewriters, for an infinite amount of time, will almost certainly type the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Absurd, he thought, they’re devaluing what it means to be human, to have brains as big as ours. The monkeys wouldn’t get anywhere. It would be gibberish for infinity.
He had even tried the experiment himself, merely to prove there are certain instances that simply cannot and will not ever occur. He took a monkey (illegally) from an expedition and sat him at a typewriter. sjflngdssjfwepapfpa, it wrote.
He eventually decided that he had to find out what the distinct qualities were that made Shakespeare such a genius – that is, what made him such that no monkey could replicate him. Not enough was known, as bardologists may note, about his outward physical appearance, his sexuality, perhaps his brain structure, and so forth – all of the things that might have identified him, distinguished him, separated him. There was only one logical way to find out. He proceeded to fly to England and dig up Shakespeare’s corpse.
He waited till night, when there were no police around – then began to dig. After several feet, he stumbled upon a faded note lying in the soil between him and the corpse. Perhaps it was the great bard’s self-composed epitaph, he figured, or a sonnet of some sort, long lost – until now.
He stared at the note, scarcely legible in the fading moonlight, but still legible enough. It read:
The human race has existed for ten quadrillion septillion years. When the species first appeared, it was just as evolved as it is now, in the present day. It was aware from its inception that something in the order of great literature could theoretically be created. Regrettably, it had neither the time nor the motivation to conceive of it itself. It elected instead to run an experiment, an experiment that would take infinite years and an infinite number of resources. This experiment was called the “infinite monkey theorem.” Every monkey in the world was employed at a typewriter for the duration of its life. The results were, at first, dismal, but then at random the monkeys hit a patch of rather incredible luck: Beowulf, the Odyssey, the Canterbury Tales, and so forth. A scant several hundred years later one monkey hit upon an absolutely extraordinary wealth of words: it banged out Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, and so on. Probably the last of its kind. If you happen upon this 500 years later, around the year 2000 perhaps, I can forewarn you that there shouldn’t be much of anything good to read. You’ll have plenty of mediocre books, certainly – the monkeys are quite adept at that – but nothing at all worth your time.
Below the note was the corpse, brown and furry, with something that looked like a long-decomposed banana hanging out of its mouth. Next to it was a plaque that read:
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
BELOVED APE, ACCIDENTAL GENIUS
1564 – 1616