Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #632941Re: Bible codes
From: Ben Walsh
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 00:00
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 00:00
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Tom Harrington wrote: > > Jacob Love (jl...@engin.umich.edu) wrote: > > : In other words, the whole long-winded nonsense is simily a lengthy > : demonstration of the infamous statistical point that if given a long > : enough time, a monkey would produce the works of Shakespeare by banging > : on a typewriter. > > Thanks to Usenet, we know that this oft-repeated idea is simply > not true. I don't know what implications this fact may have for > the alleged Bible codes. Well, it's sort of true. If there were something like 10^46 monkeys, banging typewriters at random, chances are one of them would type Polonius' quote from Hamlet: "methinks it is like a weasel." Extrapolate for the entire works of Shakespeare and you get a staggeringly large number of monkeys. Not that 10^46 isn't large - there isn't enough matter in the universe to make that many monkeys. That's what Richard Dawkins says, anyway. ben "that's a lot of monkeys" w.
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From: Ben Walsh <benw@iona.nospam.please.we'reirish.com> Subject: Re: Bible codes Date: 1997/09/19 Message-ID: <5vtonh$b3m$1@ezekiel.eunet.ie> X-Deja-AN: 273778257 References: <34099d3c.37917176@news.inter.net.il> <01bcbea5$6ac35a00$4534b9ce@juddesk> <3417F622.5B27@slc.unisys.com> <01bcbfa4$86539e60$4334b9ce@juddesk> <5vc50l$165@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> <5vrhsk$qn72@eccws1.dearborn.ford.com> Reply-To: benw@iona.nospam.please.we'reirish.com X-Complaints-To: use...@eunet.ie X-Trace: ezekiel.eunet.ie 874669617 11382 (None) 193.120.221.162 Organization: IONA Technologies Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa,sci.skeptic,sci.math,comp.misc,alt.folklore.science,alt.folklore.computers,alt.folklore.urban,soc.culture.jewish,talk.religion.misc,talk.religion.newage,alt.bible.prophecy,alt.atheism,alt.christnet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit