I do not know if you are a fan of probabilities and matheuse theories like me, but know that I did crazy algos to win the Euromillion and still nothing & mldr; Yeah! However, here is another somewhat crazy mathematical experience that could well take care of you for hours, while giving you a tiny chance of creating a masterpiece by pure chance.
This is called the Safety monkey paradox And that claims that primates typing randomly for an infinite period would eventually write the entire work of Shakespeare. Yep, I know, you already knew. I myself spoke about it in 2011 And 2014 ! It dates !!
This purely theoretical concept desperately needed a good old practice and it is now done with Monkeys.zipa site that attributes your own virtual monkey to you and takes you on a completely absurd collective experience where an army of virtual monkeys is writing an improbable masterpiece.
And the most beautiful in it is that we can all participate! Your monkey could be the one who will accidentally type “Korben” or, let’s be crazy, the first act of Hamlet.
So before, a small recall stitching for those who have dried the probability lessons (sniff) & mldr; As I told you, this theorem claims that a monkey tapping indefinitely and randomly on a keyboard will end, with a probability of 1, by writing any given text. But beware, we are talking about theoretical probabilities here and a “infinite” time.
To give you an idea, the probability of writing if only “To be or not to be”By chance is 1 in 26^16, or about 1 in 43 billion billion. And for Hamlet in full with its 130,000 letters is 1 out of 3.4 × 10^183.946. It is such a large number that it exceeds the number of atoms in the observable universe (estimated at 10^80) so to say that even with all the monkeys on the planet, we are not ready to see Shakespeare appear.
But that was before Monkeys.zip!
Launched on April 1, this site allows you to adopt a virtual monkey that will type randomly at a rate of 10 characters per second On its small keyboard, even when you are not connected. The site then automatically detects the words that appear in this flow of letters and will attribute them to your monkey.
The funniest thing is that all these monkeys are placed on a virtually infinite grid where you can walk around the mouse & mldr; And quite naturally, spontaneous social behaviors have emerged. For example, most monkeys come together in an area called “The Clump” (agglomeration), even if some adventurers have been isolated, sometimes at the equivalent of a virtual kilometer of any other monkey!
And to make the most fun, your monkey gains points, cosmetic objects and “achievements” depending on the words it hits. My monkey is called Dilly Blingohe’s a gorilla, and for the moment he has written anything particularly impressive, but hope brings to life!
However, in just a few days of existence, the monkeys of Monkeys.zip have already accomplished impressive statistical prowess. Collectively, they typed more than 17 million words in 24 hours And completed 2170 words that appear in the works of Shakespeare.
Some monkeys have even succeeded in remarkable individual exploits. For example, the monkey Lezzle Twirro typed “Esteemest”, a word of 9 letters that appears in the works of Shakespeare. Others have discovered words like “Nemesis”, “Heareth” and “Anisette” (8 letters).
Among the most intriguing monkeys are Graydy Gosworth, nicknamed the “Dark Queen of the West”, which wasolated more than a virtual kilometer from any other monkey. Or the mysterious Ildy Plogel, so far away that the system has struggled to manage its position, creating bugs of floating comma errors!
From a technical point of view, Monkeys.zip is a real challenge because managing thousands of monkeys tapping 10 characters per second, storing and analyzing this data, and organizing all this on a virtually infinite grid, it is not an easy task !!
Small interesting detail, the monkeys do not hit completely at random. Indeed, the distribution of letters is slightly biased to promote the most common letters in English, making the text more “natural”. It’s a bit of cheating compared to the original theorem, but it makes the experience more pleasant for users.
Now, if like me, you want to adopt your own monkey, nothing could be simpler:
- Go to https://monkeys.zip
- Click on any gray monkey that does nothing to get your monkey (name and position generated randomly)
- Let him work then discover the words he will have typed and the goodies he will have won
- And you can even customize your box by choosing a color
- And don’t forget to go and explore the card to find out what others do & mldr;
He looks happy mine anyway.
A Reddit community has even already formed around the project: /R/Monkeyszip.
So of course, the probabilities remain what they are, and we will probably never see a monkey writing even a whole sonnet of Shakespeare by chance. It would take around 10^80 years for a monkey to write any Hamlet, which goes far beyond the planned lifespan of the universe & mldr;. But the beauty of this project lies in the unexpected, namely these small moments when a monkey hits a complex word by chance, or when communities form spontaneously in this virtual space.
In short, Monkeys.zip transforms an abstract mathematical concept into a Kiffante community experience which reminds us that even the impossible becomes probable with enough time & mldr; or enough monkeys.
Come on, your turn to adopt a monkey now! And who knows? Maybe your virtual primate will be the one that will make a truly exceptional discovery. To you glory, success, money, love and so on!
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