# What Book Was This? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 30, 2002, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637 "2002-12-30T06:54:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/1 "2002-12-30T06:54:40Z")
In college, I was once forced to read some fictional short story related to Darwin. All I recall is that some scientist placed maybe 100 monkeys each before a typewriter. The hypothesis was that by sheer random typing at the keys, a monkey would eventually bang out a Shakespeare play, IIRC, by total randomness. Although the scientist running the experiment believed the odds were highly against it, one monkey DID! I think the scientist killed himself thinking he had gone mad. Did anyone else had to read such a story in college, mostlikely? What was the name of this story. I want to say it was in some anthology that may have been entitled “The Descent of Man”? - Jinx ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/2 "2002-12-30T07:12:42Z")
I found the following post, which might describe your story… \>\> Kyla’s signature said: \>\> \>\>\> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- \>\>\> Why do an infinite number of monkeys always want to type \>\>\> “Hamlet”? What’s wrong with “Macbeth”? Why not something \>\>\> by Dickens or Poe? \>\>\> --Tom Knapp \>\> \>\> There’s a skit by David Ives in “All in the Timing” which is about \>\> three monkeys trying to type Hamlet. One of them comes up with “It \>\> was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, but trashes it. \> \> There’s a short story I read once, where a statistician tells a friend \> about the monkeys-randomly-typing-Hamlet thing and the friend, in a \> fit of boredom, buys twenty monkeys and twenty typewriters and sticks \> them in his basement to see what happens. \> \> What happens is that each immediately starts typing a different work \> of classic literature, letter perfect. Then there is this page, which talks about the works of R. A. Lafferty which contains a story about the monkeys, but likely not the one you mentioned: [http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/writing/sfx/sfx092.html](http://www.ansible.demon.co.uk/writing/sfx/sfx092.html) Aha! I think I might’ve found it at this page: [http://www2.bc.edu/~boydmb/monkeys.htm](http://www2.bc.edu/~boydmb/monkeys.htm) "These are some pieces of writing based on the typing monkeys: Russell Maloney. `Inflexible Logic.'' Short story, originally appeared in The New Yorker magazine, 1940, and anthologized in James R. Newman, The World of Mathematics. A gentleman overhears a friend saying `we know that if six chimpanzees were to set to work pounding six typewriters at random, they would, in a million years, write all the books in the British Musueum’’ and decides to put it to the test. His friend’s authority: “It may be nonsense, but Sir James Jeans believes it … Jeans or Lancelot Hogben.’’ The chimps type out works by Dickens, Pareto, Donne, Anatole France, Conan Doyle, Galen, Sumerset Maugham, Proust, and so forth. A mathematician from Yale, distraught at this violation of the laws of probability, assassinates the chimpanzees and their patron.” ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/3 "2002-12-30T07:16:49Z")
And this is a link to the story, “Inflexible Logic.” [http://www.janda.org/c10/readings/monkeys.htm](http://www.janda.org/c10/readings/monkeys.htm) Btw, I found a site that lists a bunch of stories/novels that deal with math, in case anyone would care: [http://math.cofc.edu/faculty/kasman/MATHFICT/](http://math.cofc.edu/faculty/kasman/MATHFICT/) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/4 "2002-12-30T07:16:50Z")
[possibly be Russel Maloney’s “Inflexible Logic”?](http://math.cofc.edu/faculty/kasman/MATHFICT/mf99.html) [And click here if you haven’t seen the FAntastic Typing CyberMonkey](http://www.megalink.net/~ccs/monkey.htm) ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/5 "2002-12-30T07:20:56Z")
Hah! I win! 😃 😉 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/6 "2002-12-30T08:01:47Z")
Yeah, well, if I wasn’t wasting my time digging up the gratuitous Fantastic Typing CyberMonkey cite, it woulda been a photo finish. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/7 "2002-12-30T14:38:30Z")
Here’s the link for anyone who wants to see the Fantastic Typing CyberMonkey: [http://www.megalink.net/~ccs/monkey.htm](http://www.megalink.net/~ccs/monkey.htm) Haven’t seen Hamlet yet, but it did type the word “shit” while I was watching. That’s some monkey! :eek: 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Guy\_Propski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Guy\_Propski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guy_Propski)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/8 "2002-12-30T14:38:52Z")
R.A. Lafferty wrote a short story about this theme called “Been a Long, Long Time.” It’s pretty hysterical. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/9 "2002-12-30T14:39:35Z")
Duh. That’s what I get for missing the second half of your vast, 2-link post. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/10 "2002-12-30T15:41:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \>\> Kyla’s signature said: > \>\> What? Huh? ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/11 "2002-12-30T15:47:43Z")
Sorry, **Kyla** , that post had nothing to do with you and was at some other board for something or other… hell, I should’ve provided a link, but it was just some archived Usenet thing. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/12 "2002-12-30T16:09:04Z")
“There’s an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they’ve worked out.” - HHGTTG, Douglas Adams. ---
**Author:** ![lurkernomore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@lurkernomore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lurkernomore)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2002, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-was-this/145637/13 "2002-12-30T17:04:58Z")
…then they typed out the scripts for \* Star Trek:Voyager \*…