An Infinite Number of Monkeys May Produce an Infinite Pile of Sh*t

An infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite number number of typewriters, are supposed to be able to produce the works of Shakespeare. Mike Phillips, a media researcher at Plymouth University, has his doubts about that. Phillips and his team gave half a dozen monkeys a computer for a month. "They pressed a lot of S’s," he said Friday. "Obviously, English isn’t their first language."

The crested Sulawesi monkeys, denizens of Paignton Zoo in southwest England, failed to produce any great works of literature, in fact, although their writing skills eventually expanded to include the letters A, J, L and M. This does not mean, though, that they failed to interact with the machine. "The lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it," Phillips said. "Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard."

Of course, not everything Shakespeare produced was a masterpiece, either.

(MSNBC)