I know what you’re thinking: Shakespeare, ugh! Is this one of those take-your-medicine, eat-your-spinach, good-for-you stories I should watch but really don’t WANT to watch? Well, fear not! Ira Glass, creator and host of the popular public radio program “This American Life,” has felt your pain since high school. “It …
Who exactly is in charge here? Is it the strutting general or his self-effacing ensign? The man celebrated for his “free and open nature” or the sociopath who keeps stockpiling secrets? That question has been occupying the minds of theatergoers and readers since Shakespeare’s “Othello” was first performed in London …
Science doesn’t usually tolerate frivolity, but the infinite monkey theorem enjoys an exception. The question it poses is thoroughly outlandish: Could an infinite number of monkeys, each given an infinite amount of time to peck away at a typewriter (stocked with an infinite supply of paper, presumably) eventually produce, by …