Monkeys will never be able to write Shakespeare’s entire works, study finds

Chimpanzees were the focus of the study as the closest relative among apes to humans (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Monkeys will never have the capacity to write the complete works of William Shakespeare, a study has found.

It challenges the long-held theory of probability that, given an infinite period of time, monkeys pressing keys at random on a typewriter would eventually be able to reproduce the famous texts.