Editing Infinite monkey theorem (section)

===Statistical mechanics===
In one of the forms in which probabilists now know this theorem, with its "dactylographic" [i.e., typewriting] monkeys ({{langx|fr|singes dactylographes}}; the French word ''singe'' covers both the monkeys and the apes), appeared in [[Émile Borel]]'s 1913 article "''Mécanique Statique et Irréversibilité''" (''Static mechanics and irreversibility''),<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Borel |first=Émile |date=1913 |title=La mécanique statique et l'irréversibilité |url=https://hal.science/jpa-00241832 |journal=Journal de Physique Théorique et Appliquée |language=fr |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=189–196 |doi=10.1051/jphystap:019130030018900 |issn=0368-3893 |quote=Concevons qu'on ait dressé un million de singes à frapper au hasard sur les touches d'une machine à écrire et que […] ces singes dactylographes travaillent avec ardeur dix heures par jour avec un million de machines à écrire de types variés. […] Au bout d'un an, [leurs] volumes se trouveraient renfermer la copie exacte des livres de toute nature et de toutes langues conservés dans les plus riches bibliothèques du monde.}}</ref> and in his book "Le Hasard" in 1914.<ref name="Borel1914">{{cite book |author=Borel |first=Émile |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kmm4vgEACAAJ&q=frapper |title=La hasard |publisher=Félix Alcan |year=1914 |location=Paris |page=164 |language=fr-FR }} [https://archive.org/details/lehasard00boreuoft/page/164 Alt URL]</ref> His "monkeys" are not actual monkeys; rather, they are a metaphor for an imaginary way to produce a large, random sequence of letters. Borel said that if a million monkeys typed ten hours a day, it was extremely unlikely that their output would exactly equal all the books of the richest libraries of the world; and yet, in comparison, it was even more unlikely that the laws of statistical mechanics would ever be violated, even briefly.

The physicist [[Arthur Eddington]] drew on Borel's image further in ''The Nature of the Physical World'' (1928), writing:

{{blockquote|If I let my fingers wander idly over the keys of a typewriter it might happen that my screed made an intelligible sentence. If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum. The chance of their doing so is decidedly more favourable than the chance of the molecules returning to one half of the vessel.<ref name="Arthur1928">{{cite book | author=Arthur Eddington | title=The Nature of the Physical World: The Gifford Lectures | url=https://archive.org/details/natureofphysical00eddi | publisher=Macmillan | location=New York | year=1928 | page=[https://archive.org/details/natureofphysical00eddi/page/72 72] | isbn=0-8414-3885-4}}</ref><ref name='Arthur1927'>{{cite web | url = http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPNOPW&Volume=0&Issue=0&ArticleID=6 | title = Chapter IV: The Running-Down of the Universe | access-date = 2012-01-22 | last = Eddington | first = Arthur | work = The Nature of the Physical World 1926–1927: The [[Gifford Lectures]] | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090308150708/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPNOPW&Volume=0&Issue=0&ArticleID=6 | archive-date = 2009-03-08 }}</ref>}}

These images invite the reader to consider the incredible improbability of a large but finite number of monkeys working for a large but finite amount of time producing a significant work and compare this with the even greater improbability of certain physical events. Any physical process that is even less likely than such monkeys' success is effectively impossible, and it may safely be said that such a process will never happen.<ref name="KK" /> It is clear from the context that Eddington is not suggesting that the probability of this happening is worthy of serious consideration. On the contrary, it was a rhetorical illustration of the fact that below certain levels of probability, the term ''improbable'' is functionally equivalent to ''impossible''.