this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
460 points (93.7% liked)

Showerthoughts

29612 readers
1735 users here now

A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. Avoid politics (NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out)
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] xigoi@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 9 months ago

Then there is every second a nonzero chance that this machine (assuming true and not pseudo randomness) will pick, say pi.

No. The probability of picking any particular number from a uniform distribution is 0.

On the contrary, since the works of Shakespeare are a finite string over a finite alphabet (I can formalize this argument if you want), the probability of typing them out after some fixed large number of keystrokes is some nonzero number ๐‘. With ๐‘› monkeys, the probability that at least one will type out the works is 1 โˆ’ (1 โˆ’ ๐‘)โฟ, which goes to 1 as ๐‘› โ†’ โˆž.

Now, you are right that this does not mean that the works are guaranteed to be typed out. However, it has probability 1, so itโ€™s mathematically โ€œalmost certainโ€.