tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3428850841046457972.post3686724986033399838..comments2024-03-23T02:29:26.258-07:00Comments on Popular Science: The monkey pounding on a typewriterManuel Alfonsecahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774826547519124306noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3428850841046457972.post-27025411610346855212015-02-10T11:25:40.240-08:002015-02-10T11:25:40.240-08:00Thanks. I have a couple of things to add to the po...Thanks. I have a couple of things to add to the post:<br /><br />1. An event may have a very low probability, but its occurrence may be certain. So, if you buy a single ticket for a lottery with 100.000 different numbers, your probability of winning is 10^-5, but if all the numbers are sold, someone will win the first prize anyway, even with such a low probability. This happens because there are many people playing, and if a number is sold, nobody else can buy it. <br /><br />Does this happen in the monkey case? Not at all. Let us assume that the probability of a text being written were 10^-500, and that there are 10^500 monkeys pounding on typewriters in parallel. Would the text in question be sure to written in this situation? No, because we couldn't assume (as I did in the post) that two monkeys will always write different texts. In fact, the number of repetitions could be very large, without any limitation. Therefore it would not be certain that the text in don Quixote would ever be written.<br /><br />2. The multiverse hypothesis has been introduced to solve the fine tuning problem, but it doesn't. String theory, for instance, postulates the existence of 10^500 possible different universes. But even if there were 10^500 universes in existence, we wouldn't be able to assure that there were no repetitions, therefore we would be in the same situation as the 10^500 monkeys pounding on typewriters. Therefore those multiverses do not solve the fine tuning problem. To do that, the only way is postulating the existence of an infinite number of universes (as Tegmark does). But this introduces other problems, as I have pointed in previous posts in this blog.<br />Manuel Alfonsecahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12774826547519124306noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3428850841046457972.post-50014487522507785632015-02-09T16:02:05.352-08:002015-02-09T16:02:05.352-08:00Thank you so much for the interesting article on a...Thank you so much for the interesting article on a suggestion I've always found unsound.Krisi Keleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15994337915028634447noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3428850841046457972.post-26802444464905005262015-02-07T11:45:51.115-08:002015-02-07T11:45:51.115-08:00Excellent post!! Elena from the USAExcellent post!! Elena from the USAelena maria vidalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com