The infinite monkey theorem and its associated imagery is considered a popular and proverbial illustration of the mathematics of probability, widely known to the general public because of its transmission through popular culture.Examples of the theorem being referred to as proverbial include: Why Creativity Is Not like the Proverbial Typing Monkey Jonathan W. Schooler, Sonya Dougal, Psychological Inquiry, Vol. 10, No. 4 (1999); and The Case of the Midwife Toad (Arthur Koestler, New York, 1972, page 30): "Neo-Darwinism does indeed carry the nineteenth-century brand of materialism to its extreme limits—to the proverbial monkey at the typewriter, hitting by pure chance on the proper keys to produce a Shakespeare sonnet." The latter is sourced from Parable of the Monkeys, a collection of historical references to the theorem in various formats.
However, this popularity as either presented to or taken in the public's mind often oversimplifies or confuses important aspects of the different scales of the concepts involved: infinity, probability, and timeall of these are in measures beyond average human experience and practical comprehension or comparison.
Popularity The history of the imagery of "typing monkeys" dates back at least as far as Émile Borel's use of the metaphor in his essay in 1913, and this imagery has recurred many times since in a variety of media.
The Hoffmann and Hofmann paper (2001) referenced a collection compiled by Jim Reeds, titled "The Parable of the Monkeys – a.k.a. The Topos of the Monkeys and the Typewriters"."The Parable of the Monkeys", as of 2007, is hosted at the website of the experimental music/dance/performance art group "Infinite Monkeys". The enduring, widespread and popular nature of the knowledge of the theorem was noted in a 2001 paper, "Monkeys, Typewriters and Networks – the Internet in the Light of the Theory of Accidental Excellence". In their introduction to that paper, Hoffmann and Hofmann stated: "The Internet is home to a vast assortment of quotations and experimental designs concerning monkeys and typewriters. They all expand on the theory ... that if an infinite number of monkeys were left to bang on an infinite number of typewriters, sooner or later they would accidentally reproduce the complete works of William Shakespeare (or even just one of his sonnets)."Monkeys, Typewriters and Networks , Ute Hoffmann & Jeanette Hofmann, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung gGmbH (WZB), 2001. In 2002, a Washington Post article said: "Plenty of people have had fun with the famous notion that an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite amount of time could eventually write the works of Shakespeare"."Hello? This is Bob", Ken Ringle, Washington Post, 28 October 2002, page C01. In 2003, an Arts Council-funded piece of performance art at the University of Plymouth involving an experiment with six Celebes crested macaques and a computer keyboard received widespread press coverage."Notes Towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare" – some press clippings. In 2007, the theorem was listed by Wired magazine in a list of eight classic thought experiments.Greta Lorge, "The Best Thought Experiments: Schrödinger's Cat, Borel's Monkeys", Wired Issue 15.06, May 2007. Another study of the history was published in the introduction to a study published in 2007 by Terry Butler, "Monkeying Around with Text".Terry Butler, "Monkeying Around with Text", University of Alberta, Computing in the Humanities Working Papers, 2007.
Today, popular interest in the typing monkeys is sustained by numerous appearances in literature, television and radio, music, and the Internet, as well as graphic novels and stand-up comedy routines. Several collections of cultural references to the theorem have been published.
The following thematic timelines are based on these existing collections. The timelines are not comprehensive – instead, they document notable examples of references to the theorem appearing in various media.The examples included invariably refer directly to a variation on the theme of a large number of typing monkeys producing a work of literature, usually, but not always, a work by Shakespeare. Infinite libraries, and random text generation (instead of monkeys) are also included. Trivial or incomplete references are excluded. The initial timeline starts with some of the early history following Borel, and the later timelines record examples of the history, from the stories by Maloney and Borges in the 1940s, up to the present day.
Early history 1913 – Émile Borel's essay – “Mécanique Statistique et Irréversibilité”. 1928 – Arthur Eddington's book – The Nature of the Physical World 1931 – James Jeans' book – The Mysterious Universe 1939 – Jorge Luis Borges' essay – “The Total Library”
Literature 1940 – In "Inflexible Logic" by Russell Maloney, a short story that appeared in The New Yorker, the protagonist feels that his wealth obligates him to support the sciences, so he tests the theory. His monkeys immediately set to work typing, without error, classics of fiction and nonfiction. The rich man is amused to see unexpurgated versions of Samuel Pepys' diaries, of which he owns only a copy of a bowdlerised edition; however, the experiment ends prematurely when the mathematician to whom he has revealed the incredible occurrence returns with a rifle and kills the six monkeys. Before it succumbs to its wounds, the sixth monkey laboriously begins to type Uncle Tom's Cabin.Inflexible Logic , synopsis at the Mathematical Fiction database.The story was reprinted in the classic four-volume The World of Mathematics by James R. Newman, published in 1956, and in the classic collection Fantasia Mathematica in 1958, edited by Clifton Fadiman. 1969 – "Uncollected Works", a short story by Lin Carter, describes a machine that rapidly simulates the infinite monkeys with the result that it generates the sum total of human writing from first principles, and onward into the future. 1970 – A humorous short story by R. A. Lafferty, "Been a Long, Long Time" (Fantastic, December), tells the story of an angel who is punished by having to supervise (for trillions of years) randomly typing monkeys who are attempting to produce a perfect copy of the collected works of Shakespeare.Been a long, long time , synopsis by Fred Galvin, at the Mathematical Fiction database. 1979 – Chapter XXIII of The Neverending Story by Michael Ende describes a city full of people that have lost their memories, overseen by a monkey. The monkey entertains these people by letting them play a game of dice with letters on them. The monkey explains that since these people have lost their capability to write stories themselves, the game will make it possible for them to produce sentences, stories, or poems by pure chance. Eventually, this game would produce any story ever told, including the Neverending Story itself. 1987 – In the one-act play Words, Words, Words by David Ives, three monkeys named Milton, Swift, and Kafka have been confined to a cage by Dr. Rosenbaum, who has the hypothesis: "Three monkeys hitting keys at random on typewriters for an infinite amount of time will almost surely produce Hamlet." The play's humour mainly involves literary references, including moments when the random typing produces passages from great works of literature.The Stage: One-acts at Punchline, Mel Gussow, The New York Times, 15 January 1987.It's All in the Laughing, All in the Timing will have you in stitches , review by Melissa Bearns for Eugene Weekly, 4 June 2006. 1996 – In Jim Cowan's short story "The Spade of Reason" (published in Century 4, 1996), the main character seeks to find meaning in the universe through text randomly generated through various means; the original program he uses to do so is something he dubs the "Motorola Monkey".* 2012 – In the novel A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck, the protagonist dies and is sent to hell. He finds himself in a massive library where every book contains a unique sequence of random characters, all of the exact same length. He can only leave when he finds the book that accurately describes his life story. At the beginning of the novel he tells the reader he has been searching for hundreds of billions of years and found multiple coherent works. 2023 – In The New Yorker January 16, 2023 "Shouts & Murmurs" Department, a one-page satirical take-off entitled "The Infinite-Monkey Theorem: Field Notes" by Reuven Perlman. Here, an embedded reporter monitors "[m]onkeys and typewriters as far as the eye can see" for most of December 2022 to eventually report: "Monkey No. 7160043—nicknamed Coco—experienced a 90-minute burst of creative energy and has successfully and independently written the entirety of Shakespeare's Hamlet! The theorem has been confirmed!" Coco is ecstatic until she starts to reread the manuscript "with a furrowed brow", and then lights her copy of Hamlet on fire and announces her retirement from writing, and then her plans to apply to grad school in the fall. The monkeys then resume their unproductivity and humorous self-distractions to avoid the task of writing.
Film 1959 – In the film On the Beach, when wireless Morse code signals are detected by radio operators on the carrier Melbourne, the Australian admiral mentions "the old story about an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of typewriters", and that "one of them has to end up writing King Lear". 2021 – The theorem was mentioned in the film The Boss Baby: Family Business. 2020 – The theorem was mentioned in the film Spontaneous. 2025 – In Superman, Lex Luthor engineers hundreds of monkeys to write negative comments about Superman on social media.
Radio and television 1978 – In his radio play, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams invoked the theorem to illustrate the power of the ‘Infinite Improbability Drive' that powered a spaceship. From Episode 2: "Ford, there's an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to us about this script for Hamlet they've worked out". 1983 – In the Doctor Who episode "Mawdryn Undead", the Doctor mentions the theorem in passing (quoting it as "a treeful of monkeys"), stating to Tegan that "you and I both know, at the end of a millennium they'd still be tapping out gibberish." Tegan's response: "And you'd be tapping it out right alongside them." 1993 – In The Simpsons episode "Last Exit to Springfield", Mr. Burns has a room with 1,000 monkeys at 1,000 typewriters, one of which he chastises for mistyping a word in the opening sentence of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: "'It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times?' You stupid monkey!"Woo-hoo! A look at the 10 best 'Simpsons' episodes ever, Press & Sun-Bulletin, 27 July 2007. "The genius of this joke is a child can laugh at it, but those who understand the allusion to Charles Dickens and the infinite monkey theorem can laugh on another level." 1998 – An advertisement for Molson Canadian beer depicts an array of typing chimpanzees filling a seemingly endless cathedral-like structure while a voice-over sardonically asks "Could an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters eventually define what it is to be Canadian?"."Molson Monkeys", Advertising Age, June 1998 1998 – In the "Battle of the Sexists" episode of That '70s Show, Eric Forman yells after his girlfriend Donna Pinciotti scored during a game of basketball:"Pinciotti actually scores! Hell freezes over! A monkey types Hamlet!"