edds@unc.UUCP (Tom Edds) (12/05/86)
()
A fellow graduate student in our Lab (who is not on the net) has
exhausted local resources (i.e., several reference librarians) in
attempting to get a proper reference for the quote below. I thought perhaps
someone in net-land might be able to help, so I am posting this request
on his behalf. If you can help, please reply via e-mail to uncsmk@unc.BITNET
or via USnail to
Steven M. Kemp
L. L. Thurstone Laboratory
Psychology Dept.
Davie Hall (013A)
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
Any assistance will be considered a small miracle.
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re: Missing quotation, monkeys in the basement
"If a hundred chimpanzees were to be set before a hundred typewriters
typing for thousands of years at random. They would eventually
duplicate all of the works contained in the British Museum."
This is a paraphrase of one of several versions of a statement about
probability I have heard innumerable times. Newell and Simon referred
to it obliquely when naming the "British Museum" algorithm in 1954.
I have heard it credited to T. H. Huxley and to his son Julian Huxley,
but can find no reference to it or quotation of it anywhere.
Does anyone have a clue?
<posted by:>
Tom Edds UNC-CH Psychometrics
...mcnc!unc!edds
"Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana."