this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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The question that everyone has been dying to know has been answered. Finally! What will scientists study next?

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[–] [email protected] 232 points 5 months ago (4 children)

The theorem holds true. The theorem states that the monkey has infinite time, not just the lifetime of our universe.

That's just lazy science to change the conditions to make sensational headlines. Bad scientists!

[–] [email protected] 106 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This just in: scientists disprove validity of thought experiment; philosophers remain concerned that they've missed the point.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The universe is the cage and we are the monkeys. We have already written Hamlet.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It also makes a pretty bold claim about us actually knowing the lifespan of the universe.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (4 children)

How are they defining the end of the universe?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Probably very shortly after dinner has been served at that restaurant.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I think that was just a galaxy, not the whole universe.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You mean the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

Hmm.... i sit corrected.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

But what does the Lord think about this?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

The universe is believed to end just a few nanoseconds before a monkey finishes writing Hamlet.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Heat death would be my assumption, so between about 10^100 and 10^106 years

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

We know such an infinitesimally small amount about what is actually happening in the universe that any claims to be capable of predicting it's end are patently absurd.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's not bold, we've known how long the universe will last for decades now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Just because someone tells you something, doesn't mean they actually know what they're talking about. fyi

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

When multiple fields of science all agree, yeah they know what they're talking about.

I just don't get these anti-science types...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

the monkey has infinite time

Use an infinite number of monkeys instead?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Infinite time is undefined though. We are not sure there was time before the Big Bang. Before anyone says “but there must have been,” consider that it’s just as paradoxical and mind blowing to imagine that time never had a beginning and just stretches infinitely into the past. How can that be so? It means it would have taken an infinite amount of time for us to reach this moment in time, and that means we never would have.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Infinite time is perfectly defined, it just doesn't exist in our universe

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

Why must the concept of time before the big bang (or after our heat death) exist in our physical reality for us to speculate about theoretical infinities past those? The thought experiment is about ~infinite~ time, not all the time in our limited universe. A lot of things happen at infinity that break down as soon as you add a limit, but we're not talking limits when we're talking infinity.