Home
Apple
Gadgets
Mobile
Games
Chips
Forums
Shop
Tech Support Chips Apple Mobile Games Gadgets Software The Lounge Geek.com Stuff Cameras Cell Phones Computers Electronics Laptops Memory Monitors PDAs Software Storage Devices Video Games All Products Search: All Articles Products Glossary Forums Username: Password: Cancel Forgot Username / Password? $(document).ready(function(){$('.content').waypoint(function(event, direction) { if (direction === 'down') { $('#share').css('position', 'fixed'); } else { $('#share').css('position', 'relative'); }});$("a#inline").fancybox();}); \ABS\Auto Blog Samurai\data\What Is The Cloud\geekfeed\email.jpg)
email
Email a copy of: How long would it take to read every possible English language tweet?to a friendYour NameYour EmailFriend's NameFriend's EmailBack to Geek-Cetera Print How long would it take to read every possible English language tweet? Feb. 27, 2013 (9:30 am) By: Ryan Whitwam
Web comic XKCD is great for lots of laughs, and a little learning too. If you want a little less laughing, but lots more learning, there’s always the weekly XKCD What-If. This week it answers the eternal question, “How long would it take to read every possible English language tweet?” First you need to figure out how many valid English tweets there are. The answer is surprisingly complicated.
If you just look at the raw numbers, you have 140 characters per tweet. There are 26 English letters, plus the space. So with 27 characters, you come up with 10200 possible strings of letters and spaces. But then there is Unicode to deal with, which brings the total number up to 10800. That is a 1 followed by 800 zeros. Sounding insane? Not to fear, most of these permutations are meaningless nonsense. To get to the true valid English tweets, we have to apply some information theory.
To find out how many likely valid English tweets there are, we can estimate that value based on the information contained in each letter for aggregated samples. In the mid-20th century, Claude Shannon pioneered several key concepts in information theory. Among his contributions was the discovery that, on average, each letter contains 1.0-1.2 bytes of information. This was based on having test subjects guess on blanked out letters in a sentence. It sounds bizarre, but the compression ratio he predicted holds true when tested.
So where does that leave the math, according to XKCD? In a piece of text with n bits of information, there are 2n different messages possible. So 2140*1.1 equals 2*1046 different English tweets. This calculation is based on unicity distance, a principal in cryptography for predicting variations. Still a big number, but much less than the 10800 figure from before.
Back to the original question: how long would it take to read all of them? Just 1047 seconds, which is 3*1039 years. But that’s just if you read straight through! Let’s say you work a 16 hour day reading tweets out loud before retiring for a night of fitful sleep. At that rate, the heat death of the universe would have happened several duodecillion years before you finished the task.
XKCD creates a handy new unit of time to make this easier to grasp. Imagine each day was 1032 years long (again, that’s a 1 followed by 32 zeros). It would take ten thousand years made up of these super-long days to finish reading all those tweets. In short: lots of tweets and lots of years. It’s math!
Now read: Algorithm will tweet in your place after you die
Tags: math, Numbers, tweets, Twitter, XKCD Popular Geek Pick Articles Geek.com’s first Hangout On Air is tomorrow at 2PM MYO Armband provides hands-free controls by reading your arm muscles Handwriting recognition: The unsung hero of the Surface Pro Freescale launches world’s smallest ARM chip that’s designed to be swallowed How long would it take to read every possible English language tweet? Geek Pick Archives February 2013January 2013December 2012November 2012October 2012September 2012August 2012July 2012June 2012May 2012April 2012March 2012February 2012January 2012December 2011November 2011October 2011September 2011 Search: All Articles Products Glossary Forums Previous
The Chromebook Pixel’s squarish 3:2 display is a feature, not a bug
Handwriting recognition: The unsung hero of the Surface Pro
Does Apple owe you $5?
Blizzard confirms no cross platform play for Diablo 3 on PS4
Chromebook Pixel can boot into Ubuntu and Linux Mint, just like a real laptop
How long would it take to read every possible English language tweet?
What’s next for Google Glass? Replacing your glasses altogether
Freescale launches world’s smallest ARM chip that’s designed to be swallowed
Geek.com’s first Hangout On Air is tomorrow at 2PM
MYO Armband provides hands-free controls by reading your arm muscles Next Recent Geek Pick Activity Popular Article CommentsForum Talk artyiom
there are many ideas a man can think but if he thinks it twice he thought about another idea which makes his idea non...
Posted In: Geek.com Stuff Read More » ExpertOnCoolersThe break in the case came when investigators focused on a grainy surveillance video that showed the boy, wearing his...
Posted In: Geek.com Stuff Read More » davidrossOne of the most attracting features of Mac OSX Lion is auto save for documents. And Autosave would not save the modi...
Posted In: Apple Read More » View All Forum Talk » Wolfgang Beerwell we all would love it, but i still haven't found a real usable see through device :( these guys from Vergence Labs t...
Posted In: Project Glass: What we know so far Nick6027im so stuck on the bomb da base level. super hard on galaxy s3 to control, with touchscreen, the sniper rifle faster tha...
Posted In: Hands-on with Grand Theft Auto III for iOS, Android joker159+1+1+1+1+1yeah I feel myself dumb sometimes, thx God there's smat people to help us :)...
Posted In: Raspberry Pi used to supercharge a Canon DSLR Geek.com’s first Hangout On Air is tomorrow at 2PM MYO Armband provides hands-free controls by reading your arm muscles Handwriting recognition: The unsung hero of the Surface Pro Freescale launches world’s smallest ARM chip that’s designed to be swallowed How long would it take to read every possible English language tweet? @import url(http://www.geek.com/wp-content/themes/geek5a/styles/price-grabber.css); Geek Shop Categories Cameras Cell Phones Computers Electronics Laptops Memory Monitors PDAs Software Storage Devices Video Games All Products Geek.com Buyer's Guides Desktop Computer Buyer's GuideDigital Camera Buyer's GuideHDTV Buyer's GuideLaptop Buyer's GuideNetbook Buyer's GuideSmartphone Buyer's Guide Deals and CouponsHottestLaptopsMobileGaming
LG 55LM4700 55" 3D 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV + Sound Bar System + (4) Pairs of 3D Glasses 
Dell Inspiron 15z Core i5 Ultrabook 
Breville Ikon Juice Fountain 
Samsung PN51E530 51" 1080p 600Hz Plasma HDTV + $100 Dell Gift Card 
HP ENVY dv6t-7300 15.6" Quad Edition Core i7 Laptop \ABS\Auto Blog Samurai\data\What Is The Cloud\geekfeed\634746861914766054dell-latitude-e6430-laptop.jpg)
Dell Latitude E6430 14" Core i3 Rugged Laptop \ABS\Auto Blog Samurai\data\What Is The Cloud\geekfeed\634746516001056006latitude-e6530.jpg)
Dell Latitude E6530 15.6" Core i3 Rugged Laptop \ABS\Auto Blog Samurai\data\What Is The Cloud\geekfeed\634687148251698859nokia-lumia-900-4g-lte-smartphone.jpg)
Nokia Lumia 900 4G LTE Smartphone [AT&T] \ABS\Auto Blog Samurai\data\What Is The Cloud\geekfeed\634903312730990480xboxlive.jpg)
Microsoft Xbox LIVE 12 Month Gold Membership Card 
Geek Feeds Apple Gadgets Mobile Games Chips More Geek Goes Social 
Geek.com Archives This Month Last Month All Archives Reviews Newsletters Features Glossary © 1996-2013 Ziff Davis, Inc. View the original article here
Posts
