today i was quite amused in my quantitatitve analysis class, which is a nice change. i hate quantitative methods in general. today we were talking about samples and how infinite samples demonstrate what is "normal" under a bell curve, blah blah blah. so in an infinite sample, there are infinite possibilities. this concept was expressed by my professor in the following manner:
if you take and infinite number of monkeys and place them in front of an infinite number of typewriters and an infinite space, it is certain that one of them will randomly type the entire text of "romeo and juliet."
so we all had a good laugh at his example, but my friend todd sitting in front of me got the giggles. todd is super-philosophical and looks like Don Quixote. He's really quite smart. anyway, he continued shaking in silent laughter (a la Mr Belnap, minus the facial expressions) long after the lecture had turned to more serious topics. then i got the visual of what Todd must have been picturing in his head and i got the giggles too.
think about it. monkeys on typewriters.
you're giggling too now, aren't you.
4 comments:
I should know better than to read your blog while Kasey is trying to sleep.
Now I, too, am shaking in silent laughter (a la Mr. Belnap) so as not to wake Kasey.
Monkeys on typewriters? Really?
I don't know what I enjoy more. Lizzie's posts or Laura's comments. :) Both are pretty entertaining!!
Did you know that half of my job as an auditor is making random (or judgmental or haphazzard) samples and doing some quantitative alanysis? Luckily, we don't have infinate populations to select from. The other half is, of course, qualitative analysis on the quantitative sample. While I don't think the monkeys are that funny, imagining the legendary Belnap expressions are!
Haha, that is funny. I heard that analsis in quite another manor and not so funny.
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