Some have claimed that an infinite number of monkeys banging on keyboards for an infinite amount of time would produce all written works including the Complete Works of Shakespeare. I have decided to test this claim.
I cut a deal with a band of chimps from Ontario who where passing through Michigan to look for work in the Sun Belt. That's Eric in front, a great monkey.
They agreed to wait out the winter in my spare room and bang away on keyboards for eight hours a day (with an hour for lunch, and fifteen minute breaks every two hours - so back off PETA) in exchange for room and board. I expected that they'd want bananas, but it turns out that Eric's allergic. So it's melons for him, casabas are his favorite. The others shrug of the stereotype and go for the bananas.
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Well, it's been two weeks, and the results are in. I don't have an infinite amount of time and the cats are playing hell with Eric's allergies, so we've ended the experiment. The band has headed southwest, aiming for the Mississippi. I gave them a GPS device I was given this past Christmas, the numbers of some people to look up in St. Louis, and wished them well.
The band worked hard, they put in their time, but no "Complete Works of Shakespeare." I think that if they'd been able to stay a few more weeks, they'd have churned out "Hamlet." The theory remains unproven, but I can report that five monkeys banging on keyboards eight hours a day for three weeks will produce "Titus Andronicus." The monkeys asked me not to report that finding (they had hoped for the Henriad), but facts is facts.
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