CNN —Talented though they may be, monkeys will never type out the complete works of William Shakespeare, or even a short book, a new study suggests. The Infinite Monkey Theorem is a famous thought experiment that states that a monkey pressing random keys on a typewriter would eventually reproduce the works of the Bard if given an infinite amount of time and/or if there were an infinite number of monkeys. However, in the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Franklin Open, two mathematicians from Australia’s University of Technology Sydney have rejected this theorem as “misleading” within the confines of our finite universe. They challenged it by looking at the Finite Monkeys Theorem, in which there is a finite amount of time and a finite number of monkeys. “By the time you’re at the scale of a full book, you’re billions of billions of times less likely,” he continued.

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Persons: William Shakespeare, Bard, Stephen Woodcock, ”, Woodcock, Jay Falletta, George, ” Woodcock, Chris Banerji, Alan Turing, Banerji, ’ ”, Bard ‘ Organizations: CNN, Franklin, Australia’s University of Technology Sydney, University of Technology, Alan, “ Locations: University of Technology Sydney, London