Copyright © 2005 by Blake Charlton. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, reposting, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission of the author.
From: Blake Charlton
To: My Peoples
Date: Dec 31, 2005 12:28 AM
Subject: The Infinite Monkey Theorem.
Spellwriters!
First off, notice the new email address: blake@spellwright.com -- Interesting, no? But now, a story...
Once upon a time and place…we'll call it France 1913…there was a mathematician named Emile Borel who published a book called 'Mecanique Satistique et Irreversibilite'. Now, even if you don't know the word for 'fromage' in French, you can probably discern by squinting at the title that Emil's book wasn't a good read. In fact, it was a down right snoozer and didn't even make the USA TODAY's best seller's list. However and fortunately for Emile, the book contained the unique image of a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters.
Emile's point, and it's a snappy one, was that these 10^6 monkeys would be unlikely to produce an exact copy of the Bibliotheque nationale de France. (Smart one, this Emile.) But he went on to explain that it was possible that these monkeys *might* produce just such a copy. It should be noted that Emile was also the first to coin the term "BOOYA!" which he would yell, often and at high volume, after proving his 'monkey hypothesis'.
It wasn't until the 70's--the decade that gave us 'The Planet of the Apes' and cherry flavored chap stick--that the Borelian theorem reached it's common American form: "Hey, dude, did you know that that an infinite number of monkeys randomly hitting keyboards for infinity will eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare!"
This of course proves that Americans are bad a math.
Consider: an infinite number of monkeys would INSTANTLY produce EVERY conceivable English language document from a phonemic Anglicization of the Torah as read by a Texan with a head cold and a pickle stuck up his right nostril to a complete instruction manual for the new electric toothbrush that won't be invented until next year.
Come on now, people, it's infinity. It does this.
So we need only one infinitely. Exemplum gratis: one monkey typing forever, or infinite monkeys typing for the smallest shard of time yet imagined by God.
But even with this advanced understanding of the Infinite Monkey Theorem (hereafter IMT), we don't have much use for said IMT. This is because it wasn't until the 90's that Robert Wilensky made his ground-breaking observation: "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."
So now you bask in the true glory of the IMT! Now you laugh at the foibles of the internet and those that ply there words there. Now you are in the right and proper state to read the following announcement:
The internet has another monkey behind a typewriter! Misspelling, dispelling, and expelling have found their off-ramp on the information super highway! Yes, that's right, SPELLWRIGHT now officially has its own website (www.spellwright.com)! On it you can find everything from sample chapters, to news and essays, to an interactive map where you can push a pin and identify yourself as a fellow Spellwriter! Please visit now and often!
It's not the flashiest page on the web; I coded it myself. But it does give potential readers a taste of what they'll encounter. So if you know anyone who reads Fantasy, copes with disability, or obsesses about language please please PLEASE let him or her know about the website.
Doing so will make this internet-typewriter-monkey so happy as to make the obligatory "Oo! Oo! Ah! Ah!" monkey cries of joy.
As always, I am overwhelmed with love for my friends who support and take interest in Spellwright. I miss you all, as ever; hope to hear from you soon, as ever; and remain your semi-employed, humorous-email writing servant, as ever.
Love, as ever.
-Blake
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