Monkeys.zip, aka The Monkey Project, is a live, crowdsourced experiment based on the Infinite Monkey Theorem. If you haven’t heard of the Infinite Monkey Theorem, it goes something like this:

Infinite Monkeys on Infinite Typewriters will eventually write all the works of Shakespeare.

It’s a thought experiment that’s been around for over a century, and is a fun way to ponder how an unstoppable force like Infinity collides with an immovable object like Impossible Odds.

What do I do with my monkey?

As your monkey starts typing, it will get points, hidden achievements, and cosmetic items awarded for the words it has typed. This allows you to customize your monkey and make it stand out in the crowd of Infinite Monkeys. You don’t have to keep close tabs on your monkey every day - leave it typing and come back in a week and you’ll be shocked at some of the things it has written!

What can I expect my monkey to write?

Plenty of words! Browse around our grid of monkeys to see what each has written. As a rule of thumb, a monkey will write a few 1,2 and 3 letter words each minute. Within 5 minutes we expect at least one 4 or 5 letter word. And after a day it should have a few 6 letter words under its monkey belt.

Tell me more about how the monkeys type, and how you match words.

Monkeys are currently typing at 10 characters per second. Only lower case letters and space - no punctuation. Words are currently checked against a dictionary that is way too forgiving (expect changes to that coming out of beta). A dirty little secret is that the letters monkeys type, while random, follow a distribution of letters in English text. This means that “z” is less likely than “a” to appear. We believe this keeps the spirit of the challenge, while making the monkey text appear a little more pallatable. It’s as if the monkey has a bigger keyboard than 26 letters, with a few letters duplicated. We may introduce typewriter-specific distributions for those that want a hard-mode monkey.

Will they ever actually write Shakespeare?

Absolutely, as long as this site stays running and we figure out how to avoid the heat death of the universe. It’ll only take a monkey some 10^80 years to write all of Hamlet. However, we keep track of every word written.

How can I reach you?

To contact me you can shoot me an email - luke@monkeys.llc