The Infinite Monkey Theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time will, with a probability of 1, eventually type any given text — including the complete works of Shakespeare. It is a thought experiment illustrating how probability behaves over vast scales of time and repetition.
Just start clicking!
Each cell in the grid above represents one bit. Click any cell at random to toggle it between 0 (white) and 1 (blue). Every 8 cells form a byte. When a byte matches the correct ASCII encoding of the underlying text, those 8 cells lock permanently green. Use the magnifying loupe that appears on hover to precisely target individual cells or just click randomly. Your clicks are shared in real time with every other visitor.
This installation turns an abstract mathematical idea into a collaborative physical experiment. The grid encodes the underlying text as 1,536 bytes in binary. Statistically, solving the full board by chance requires hundreds of thousands of presses - and that's with locking in correctly solved bytes. Every locked byte is a small improbability made real. Collectively, visitors are the monkey. The theorem is the wager.
Against all probability, the theorem holds.
Humanity's random button-pressing has
reproduced the works of Shakespeare.