( CNN ) -- It 's a time-honored adage about the laws of probability : Give 1 million monkeys 1 million typewriters and they 'll eventually type the entire works of William Shakespeare . Now , a software developer in Nevada is putting that saying to the test . And his digital monkeys are off to a good start . This weekend , Jesse Anderson wrote on his blog that a computerized simulation of the theoretical simian typing pool has completed `` A Lover 's Complaint , '' a narrative poem that appeared in a book of The Bard 's sonnets . `` This is the first time a work of Shakespeare has actually been randomly reproduced , '' Anderson wrote . `` Furthermore , this is the largest work ever randomly reproduced . It is one small step for a monkey , one giant leap for virtual primates everywhere . '' Anderson 's virtual monkeys began typing on August 21 . Using open-source software called Hadoop , he created a huge group of `` monkeys '' that input random strings of gibberish . When a chunk of text matches a word used in Shakespeare 's catalogue , it gets crossed off of a database of the plays and poems . His database comes from Project Gutenberg . So far , he said , over 5 trillion character groups have been churned out . Based on a page updating the project 's progress , several more works might be checked off the list soon . The monkeys appear to need only two more words to complete the comedy `` The Tempest '' and seven more to bang out `` As You Like It . '' ( There 's been no explanation for why the computer monkeys seem to be lagging behind on Shakespeare 's tragedies . ) `` The monkeys will continue typing away until every work of Shakespeare is randomly created , '' Anderson wrote . Permutations of the Infinite Monkey Theorem dates back as far as Aristotle ( although he obviously did n't have a typewriter ) . Anderson 's inspiration came from a perhaps less likely source : `` The Simpsons . '' He says it harks back to a `` Simpsons '' scene in which Mr. Burns chains up 1,000 monkeys , giving them the task of writing a great novel and berating one of them for typing , `` It was the best of times . It was the blurst of times . '' Anderson 's approach is , if nothing else , gentler . `` No monkeys were harmed during the making of this code , '' he wrote .
CNN 'monkeys ' with typewriters complete Anderson 's ` ` A Lover 's Complaint '' Project is the brainchild of a Hadoop developer and aims to test the classic ` A Lover 's Complaint '' Project It began This weekend and will continue until The Bard 's entire catalogue is reproduced . The program types random bursts of code , crossing words off when they match Shakespeare 's .