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From: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: British Museum
Message-ID: <228@uwslh.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Dec-86 13:27:17 EST
Article-I.D.: uwslh.228
Posted: Fri Dec 19 13:27:17 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Dec-86 01:48:18 EST
References: <355@unc.unc.UUCP> <200001@uicsg> <1716@sunybcs.UUCP>
Reply-To: lishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka)
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison, State Hygiene Lab
Lines: 25


I once read a story that really unerved me several years ago.  I don't remember
the name or author, but it was a short story in some science fiction 
compilation.

The plot was about a man who thought of doing the "monkeys and typewriters"
experiment with a computer.  What he had done was to have a computer randomly
spit out letters in hopes of achieving the same ends as the infinite number
of monkeys theory, except that the time required to end up with an intelligible
work would be MUCH shorter because the computer could spit out the characters
much faster than a finite number of monkeys with an infinite amount of time.
What happened in the end was the computer spit out a best-seller, and made the
guy rich.

This was not the end of the story, however.  I won't give the end of the story
away, because for me it was a real surprise and a real shock.  If anybody
knows the name and author of this short story, please post it, because it was
a really good story (or at least that is how I remember it).



-- 
Chris Lishka                    /lishka@uwslh.uucp
Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene <-lishka%uwslh.uucp@rsch.wisc.edu
                                \{seismo, harvard,topaz,...}!uwvax!uwslh!lishka