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From: edds@unc.UUCP (Tom Edds)
Newsgroups: misc.wanted,comp.ai,talk.philosophy.misc,rec.arts.books
Subject: looking for reference for "British Museum" quote
Message-ID: <355@unc.unc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Dec-86 21:39:20 EST
Article-I.D.: unc.355
Posted: Thu Dec  4 21:39:20 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Dec-86 10:44:32 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: UNC-CH Psychology Dept
Lines: 40
Xref: mnetor misc.wanted:296 comp.ai:88 talk.philosophy.misc:371 rec.arts.books:14

()

   A fellow graduate student in our Lab (who is not on the net) has
exhausted local resources (i.e., several reference librarians) in
attempting to get a proper reference for the quote below.  I thought perhaps
someone in net-land might be able to help, so I am posting this request
on his behalf. If you can help, please reply via e-mail to uncsmk@unc.BITNET
or via USnail to 
                                                                        
	Steven M. Kemp              
	L. L. Thurstone Laboratory  
	Psychology Dept.            
	Davie Hall (013A)           
	University of North Carolina	
	Chapel Hill, NC  27514                                         

  Any assistance will be considered a small miracle.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
     
re: Missing quotation, monkeys in the basement                          
                                                                        
"If a hundred chimpanzees were to be set before a hundred typewriters   
typing for thousands of years at random.  They would eventually         
duplicate all of the works contained in the British Museum."            
                                                                        
This is a paraphrase of one of several versions of a statement about    
probability I have heard innumerable times.  Newell and Simon referred  
to it obliquely when naming the "British Museum" algorithm in 1954.     
I have heard it credited to T. H. Huxley and to his son Julian Huxley,  
but can find no reference to it or quotation of it anywhere.            
                                                                        
Does anyone have a clue?                                                

  <posted by:>

   Tom Edds             UNC-CH Psychometrics
   ...mcnc!unc!edds

  "Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana."