> Why are people even spending money on this research?

"This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors."

> Why are people even spending money on this research? What are they trying to prove/disprove?

That it takes much fewer than infinite humans and infinite time to produce the most pedantic paper possible.

It's just barely possible that this is not an entirely serious paper. Scientists like to have fun too, you know?

Not to mention that frivolous research has been known to pay surprising dividends.

Maybe they are after an Ig Nobel prize?

Franklin Open, whatever it may be, could well have slightly higher standards than Arxiv, but it isn't exactly Nature or Science...

(but try telling that to The Grauniad!)

Perhaps they're finitists, or ultrafinitists?

Many years ago someone complimented me saying I am extra fine; your comment makes me think I'll start identifying as an extrafinitist ╰(∀)╯

Also Zeno’s paradox is clearly untrue because Achilles would just kill the tortoise after a few days of running back and forth, starving.

I suspect that many academic papers are a petty move to win an argument that started one day over lunch.

i disagree rabble rabble rabble rabble

It doesn't appear that they got any money for this, so I'm more forgiving of mathematicians just dicking around with something for fun.

Still, it's a very bizarre assertion to make; it's like they're trying to debunk something that no one claimed.

ETA:

Maybe they were trying to prevent the Mr Burns' of the world from trying to experiment: https://youtu.be/no_elVGGgW8

It's funny that so many people are confused about why this was written. The monkeys argument was originally used against the theory of evolution; "what's the probability that a monkey banging on a typewriter will type out Hamlet? It'll never happen, and that's why evolution is impossible." Then, someone made the counter-argument that given enough time, the monkey will type out Shakespeare. This paper argues that as long as the time is finite on the order of the age of our universe, the monkey will not type out Shakespeare.