Talk:Infinite monkey theorem

Monkey caption

Previously, the caption said "A Chimpanzee probably not writing Hamlet." This was funny, but perhaps too humorous for an article. A user opted to change it to "a chimpanzee sitting at a typewriter," which, although changing the caption is reasonable, strikes me as redundant. Worth changing to something else? Delukiel (talk) 13:09, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I changed it to "A chimpanzee typing random characters", which seems to capture both the sense of the image and the article. — Loadmaster (talk) 16:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Works for me! Delukiel (talk) 00:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

This was discussed (briefly) in talk:Infinite monkey theorem/Archive 4#probably not. I still think it's fine to have it. It's a little bit The Economist-style, but I don't think it outrages the encyclopedic form. --Trovatore (talk) 00:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Either one works for me (admittedly, I prefer the original, but I love goofball captions), I just thought what it was changed to was redundant. Delukiel (talk) 01:12, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

+1 for the original, it really doesn't hurt anyone. Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 11:21, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I've changed it back to the original. Delukiel (talk) 06:34, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

:D Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 19:47, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Now changed to "A chimpanzee writing Hamlet"! Didlidoo (talk) 01:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

too far, man _Dial^mayo 01:53, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Can it stay, or do we need to get rid of it :( Didlidoo (talk) 02:07, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

@Didlidoo the edit was reverted 3 minutes after you made it _Dial^mayo 02:09, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

D: Didlidoo (talk) 03:27, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

an encyclopedia is supposed to not say stuff like that in image captions, this is only for non serious wikis like rationalwiki (wikipedia also is not serious but at least somewhat serious/trustworthy compared to rationalwiki) 2A02:3100:3A3F:7B00:55C0:7B8F:9CAD:F16C (talk) 03:54, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Because you enjoy a joke doesn't mean it overrides MOS. I am not the first editor you have reverted in order to keep the joke on the page. It is disruptive to readers who will not understand the joke. Please keep the humor to essay pages or other parts of the project. I am happy to propose an alternative caption, but the caption isn't a place for jokes or quips. Dreameditsbrooklyn (talk) 19:28, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, above comment directed towards @Trovatore. Dreameditsbrooklyn (talk) 19:29, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

A caption literally describing the image is perfectly useless here; anyone can see what the image is, and the article is not about chimpanzees or typewriters. "Anyone can see" excepting of course our vision-impaired users, but for them there's alt-text, and I'd be happy for your description to go there.

The "no-fun party" does seem to be in almost total control of Wikipedia, but it wouldn't hurt for them to allow this harmless deviation. However, if not, the remaining option, it seems to me, is to have no caption at all. I could live with that. --Trovatore (talk) 19:34, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

We should have a caption that follows MOS. This isn't about 'no-fun,' it's about making the article accessible to people who might not grasp the joke. I find it odd that you propose to throw out the caption all together if you don't get to have your fun. Dreameditsbrooklyn (talk) 19:36, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

OK, please remember that the MOS is a guideline. It should "ordinarily be followed". As I said, a literal caption is entirely useless for this image. --Trovatore (talk) 19:38, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that MOS is a guideline, but I don't think "because I think it's funny" is a compelling reason to ignore them or the handful of other editors that have rightfully fixed the caption in the past. There were better captions in previous revisions of the article. I'm happy to work on a new one that is helpful to readers. Dreameditsbrooklyn (talk) 19:51, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I mean, the image itself is really there just to be funny. Or more precisely to provide visual interest that might attract attention and get people to think about the content of the article. It doesn't actually elucidate anything in the article, so it's not clear how a caption would help it do something it's not supposed to do in the first place. --Trovatore (talk) 20:04, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Please review my attempt at a caption useful to readers. I am perfectly happy to have the caption blanked if you think better, though I do agree with you that there is an argument for visual interest (without a quip or joke) Dreameditsbrooklyn (talk) 00:32, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Would it be reasonable to use the language "almost surely" in the caption as it is used in the lead? e.g. "A chimpanzee almost surely not writing Hamlet"? _Dial^mayo 18:11, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Current version looks good :) Didlidoo (talk) 08:02, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

"A monkey, not an ape" is logically impossible. Apes are monkeys. An animal can be "monkey, not an ape" but the opposite doesn't exist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:4C4D:218C:E500:F1A3:78A2:B90F:685 (talk) 18:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

This is completely off-topic but indulge me for a moment. At first I thought the claim "apes are monkeys" was just obviously wrong. But I looked around our articles and apparently it's true for some value of "true". Apes are monkeys in the same sense that birds are dinosaurs and there's no such thing as "trees". That is, if you insist on a taxonomy where you consider only monophyletic groups, then you would say apes are monkeys. In normal English, though, apes are not monkeys. --Trovatore (talk) 20:45, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Use of $=\infty$ versus $\rightarrow \infty$

The math expression shown under "Infinite strings" section is a divergent series, but currently it is written as $=\infty$. I think this is incorrect because series do not equal infinity. It could be changed to $\rightarrow \infty$ or perhaps just remove the $=\infty$, since its divergence is already stated. Jordanmrfox (talk) 20:48, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, that depends on how you formulate the notion of infinite sum. The statement as written is correct, if you use the appropriate definition. That said, of course in this particular case it doesn't matter much, because a probability can't be greater than 1, so it's already a contradiction once you get that far. --Trovatore (talk) 23:28, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I looked at the wikipedia articles for Series (mathematics), Convergent series, Divergent series, Infinite expression, and I do not see a use of $=\infty$ anywhere.

The page Convergent series uses the arrow notation in expressions like

${1 \over 1}+{1 \over 2}+{1 \over 3}+{1 \over 4}+{1 \over 5}+{1 \over 6}+\cdots \rightarrow \infty .$

If one accepts that the $+\cdots$ means exactly the same thing as summation to infinity, then I think the arrow is the best choice.

However, Borel–Cantelli lemma, which this page cites, uses the $=\infty$ notation a number of times.

Perhaps this is just a stylistic difference between pure math and statistics. I don't think anyone will be seriously confused about what $=\infty$ means, but pedagogically I think we should try to all use the same standard. Jordanmrfox (talk) 21:11, 25 February 2024 (UTC)

I would actually be in favor of changing to "= ∞" in the "convergent series" page -- it looks weird to have a fixed expression, even containing an ellipsis, that uses the arrow notation. The thing that approaches infinity is the sequence of finite sums, but the left-hand side is an infinite sum, not a sequence of finite sums. --Trovatore (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

You could simply argue that the sum of a divergent infinite series does not just approach infinity, but is equal to infinity (∞), since the sum exceeds any finite number. — Loadmaster (talk) 22:49, 12 July 2024 (UTC)