Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbatt!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!mendozag
From: mendozag@pur-ee.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: looking for reference for "British Museum" quote
Message-ID: <5278@pur-ee.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Jan-87 00:24:50 EST
Article-I.D.: pur-ee.5278
Posted: Fri Jan 16 00:24:50 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Jan-87 04:44:26 EST
References: <355@unc.unc.UUCP> <3800001@nucsrl.UUCP> <1171@whuts.UUCP> <1281@lifia.UUCP>
Reply-To: mendozag@pur-ee.UUCP (Victor M Grado)
Organization: Electrical Engineering Department , Purdue University
Lines: 40

In article <1281@lifia.UUCP> csma@lifia.UUCP (Christian de Sainte Marie) writes:
>>In article <3800001@nucsrl.UUCP>, ram@nucsrl.UUCP (raman renukanthan) writes:
>>> >>"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."            
>
>I know of a slightly modified quote:
>"If you put a chimp before a typewriter and if he types randomly and the
>output is the first chapter of "Therese Desqueyroux", you made an error:
>it is not a chimpanzee, it is Francois Mauriac"
>(from "the little encyclopedy to comfort the good-for-nothings" by
>  Cavana)
>
>Ch. de Sainte Marie - LIFIA/IMAG - BP 68 - 38402 St Martin d'Heres - FRANCE
>
>PS: does this discussion really belongs to comp.ai?

  Feel guilty now? huh?  :-)  Now for some serious discussion...

    A few years ago I read a book with a good discussion on the "Monkeys
  at the Typewriters" problem. I don't recall the exact reference and
  the library's computerized retrieval system is down for a few days so I
  cannot check. It is (was?) published by Prentice-Hall
  and written by some physicist from Yale with last name Bennett (I think).
    The book deals with some scientific programming (with BASIC, but don't
  disregard it because of that) and it has a chapter on Language (about
  chap. 4) where discusses the problem very nicely (it even mentions
  Bob Newhart's act). It seems that the problem has been popular for
  some time especially since some Sir Arthur Eddington (around 1927) 
  used it on some statistical mechanics lectures. (I first heard about
  this problem with the name "Sir Arthur Eddington Monkey and Typewriters
  Problem"). The book also deals with relations of this problem to
  information theory.
    I might have copies of that section but no references since at the
  time I was not interested in references and such :-(.
  
     Victor M Grado

     pur-ee!mendozag
     mendozag@ecn.purdue.edu