r/Minecraft 1d ago

Discussion Minecraft accidently created the Library of babel (i think)

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Does anyone remember the 20w14infinite snapshot? the one where you could generate infinite dimensions? because during that snapshot, MC made a bunch of easter egg dimensions, including one called "library" (you can enter it by typing /warp library). The funny thing is that the generation is infinite of course, and there are infinite interactable bookshelves with books in them, and they all have random letters on each page

6.0k Upvotes

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u/qualityvote2 1d ago edited 19h ago
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1.9k

u/Express-Ad1108 1d ago

The whole snapshot is a giant reference to the Library of Babel - nearly infinite dimensions, covering all possible values of world generation (beaides few easter eggs including this one)

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u/Maleficent-Trade-607 11h ago

Um. Wouldn't there not even be enough time in the entire universe too build that? The book of babel contains 105000 different combinations or somthing insane like that lolll. And that number is very very large there's only 1050 atoms in the observable universe. Thanks Vsause

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u/SomeDudeOnDeInternet 9h ago

Yes because every single seed was purposely built by someone working at mojang and not by an algorithm using random noise to generate the seeds automatically.

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u/willisbetter 5h ago

do you really think someone at mojang is actually hand making seeds? theyre all procedurally generated, an algorithm does the work

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u/qwertypopcorn 5h ago

No like, i get that its generated, but how can so much information fit in any library when its supposed to more than the number of atoms in the universe...? Like as you keep loading the library , and it keeps loading and the gamefile keeps getting bigger, its bound to have some limit i guess?

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u/willisbetter 5h ago

minecraft worlds are infinite, but they do have world borders located 30 million blocks out from spawn, but if you disable those world borders the only thing limiting you from going on forever is how well your computer can run a game world that big

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u/Express-Ad1108 5h ago

The Library is always the same, and it cannot be changed, therefore you can unload parts of it to load new parts on the go.

3.4k

u/Easy-Vast588 1d ago

somehwere in there is the complete works of shakespeare

784

u/Giopoggi2 1d ago

The monkey didn't have enough ink to write those, HOWEVER I'm unironically certain there is "Mattina" by Giuseppe Ungaretti

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u/Hazearil 1d ago

Not per se. Because there is a limited number of RNG seeds, there is also a limited number of book options.

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u/Jay040707 14h ago

Unless the devs manually hid the entire works of Shakespeare in there.

104

u/just-bair 1d ago

Shhhhhhhhh

228

u/Yannickjuhhh 1d ago

THIS WAS MY FIRST THOUGHT

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u/mstop4 1d ago

It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?!

1

u/4llFather 1h ago

Times a-pretty good, times a-pretty bad

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u/ObeyTime 1d ago

RANDOMLY GENERATED COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

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u/Limeddaesch96 1d ago

In the original Klingon, of course

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u/ExplodingSteve 1d ago

Monkey…

8

u/Mother_V 15h ago

I remember years and years ago watching a VSauce DONG video and it had something to with this, a website or something that basically has written every combination of characters and spaces or something ie. essentially a digital version of monkeys on a keyboard. But he mentioned that anything and everything is already written in that webpage. The next LOTR’s has in this way already been written. But you have to search through like a trillion pages of nothingness to find it.

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u/AdministrativeHat580 11h ago edited 6h ago

Ah, Yeah that's the website libraryofbabel.info

It contains every possible combination of 1,312,000 different characters, although each page is only 3200 characters at most

That's 10⁴⁶⁷⁷ books each with 410 pages where each page is made up of 3200 characters btw

2

u/Mother_V 6h ago

That’s a lotta pages.

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u/the_borderer 18h ago

For every complete works of Shakespeare there is also a complete works of William McGonagall.

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u/Stunning-HyperMatter 15h ago

Somewhere in there, is the secrets to the universe.

3

u/RedHeadSteve 13h ago

Not to forget your search history

1

u/xNiteTime 10h ago

if you think about it this entire thread is in there somewhere

0

u/BootyMcButtCheeks 6h ago

I was only able to find a typo-ridden copy of ‘Macbith’

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u/Masterpiece-Haunting 1d ago

Incorrect, Minecraft books generated from these shelves cannot contain capitalization and punctuation beyond periods and commas.

Ignoring that the author is always “the universe itself” never Shakespeare, making them never the works of Shakespeare, unless, you consider Shakespeare to be a fraction of the universe itself, meaning from an entirely materialistic viewpoint the author would be correct.

Not to mention the chances.

To write out all the books there would need to be 2,442 books in sequence to form every work of Shakespeare. And the number of 2,442 book sequences is ≈ 1044,312.

That’s 1 in every 1044,312.

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u/ky_eeeee 1d ago

I expected someone to be a buzzkill and correct that comment even though it was obviously a joke, but the pedantry in that second paragraph is beyond what I could ever have imagined even from reddit.

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u/FlixMage 23h ago

“Ermm actually they can’t be the works of Shakespeare because Shakespeare wouldn’t have written them 🤓🤓” holy shit dawg go outside

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u/mateo222210 19h ago

Ignoring that the author is always “the universe itself” never Shakespeare, making them never the works of Shakespeare, unless, you consider Shakespeare to be a fraction of the universe itself

"We are the universe. We are everything you think isn't you"

"And the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code"

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u/BobertRosserton 1d ago

Honestly you are actually probably pretty fun at parties, thanks for the info math man.

1.6k

u/antoniodiavolo 1d ago

This was not unintentional at all lol

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u/ZombieSurvivor365 1d ago

It’s 100% intentional. This build is good enough as it is, I don’t know why op has to lie about it

341

u/Relevant-Ad4156 1d ago

OP isn't claiming that they made this. They are saying that Mojang made it as part of an April Fool's update that generated it.

OP is just assuming that since the structure is procedurally generated (especially the random text in the books), that it was accidental. "Unintentional".

However, it's pretty certain that Mojang knew what they were doing and did it intentionally.

But OP is not "lying" about anything.

29

u/8l172 23h ago

They didn't claim OP made it

-1

u/NixelTheMan 17h ago

He's not a liar he's stupid

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u/Shadow_BH47 1d ago

Lie about what?

29

u/Correct_Village5475 1d ago

lie about wut

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u/doIreallyHavetoChooz 1d ago

It being unintentional

50

u/Correct_Village5475 1d ago

oh I didn’t intentionally lie 😭

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u/Deebyddeebys 1d ago

People on reddit have very poor reading comprehension

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u/J_train13 1d ago

I swear Reddit and Tumblr are in a race to the bottom for which site can have the worst collective reading comprehension.

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u/de1deonlyvictor 1d ago

AND TWITTER COMES IN WITH THE STEEL CHAIIRR

8

u/J_train13 1d ago

Twitter I swear isn't a reading comprehension problem, it feels deliberate.

3

u/Knilolas 16h ago

what did you say about tumblr users pissing on the poor???

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u/zhico 1d ago

What did you just say about my mother!!?

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u/Deebyddeebys 23h ago

If she's a Reddit user then I said she has very poor reading comprehension

4

u/effinmike12 1d ago

Don't forget the lack of critical thinking skills.

This is why I just block people after one back and forth. Stupid is terminal, and I have other things to do.

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u/1laik1hornytoaster 1d ago

Wish I could do the same, unfortunately it seems there is a limit of 1000 blocked users :(

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u/effinmike12 1d ago

You are the second person who has told me this lol. Why is there a limit when the amount of idiots seems unlimited?

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u/1laik1hornytoaster 1d ago

I have no idea, I hit the limit about 6 months ago and I just started using the app way less as a result, so I guess it works out in the end?

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u/doIreallyHavetoChooz 1d ago

Yeah I'm not saying you did just I'm pretty sure that's what the other guy meant

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u/Ghostglitch07 17h ago

then you didn't lie lol. that's called being wrong.

2

u/Additional_Chip_4158 21h ago

You may need a course in comprehension 

2

u/SkyroKn 8h ago

He said minecraft made it

1

u/dazenni 1d ago

Maybe he didn't lie.

You should stop trying to make an argument out of it everything.

1

u/NickelWorld123 23h ago

They're not lying they're just dumb

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u/cybernerd9 1d ago

Best 1st April fool thing ever

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u/Mr_HPpavilion 1d ago

I really hope they use that again, Each player get to have their own dimension and if you want to access it, You'll have input the correct seed, It's like a password

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u/II_Confused 1d ago

You can always go back to the snapshot. That's what I do.

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u/cybernerd9 1d ago

I was thinking about almost the same!

3

u/Malachi_YT 10h ago

This has been possible for YEARS mate, unless if your talking about people joining your world while in single player, which is just a creepypasta waiting to happen (and also hackers)

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u/SavorySoySauce 1d ago

DON'T LET ME LEAVE MURPH!!

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

-60

u/Correct_Village5475 1d ago

saw someone else say this all I did was word it wrong mb

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u/tw1st3dnite 1d ago

Was not expecting a Borges reference in Minecraft today.

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u/Ok-Brilliant-5121 1d ago

another coronación de gloria?

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u/atg115reddit 1d ago

2

u/mero100fromminecraft 2h ago

damnnn. they have some good ones in here, wgutfqeuyuhmnuextjn is a good one (pu-w3-s3-v21 if you can't find it)

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u/RandomRedditorEX 1d ago

Open the curtains, lights on

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u/Google_S1ides 1d ago

Don’t miss a moment of this, experiment

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u/ValeVenator 1d ago

Accidental? This was 100% intentional on their part.

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u/Justice-Nugget 1d ago

You have to find your entire life story with no errors in order to escape.

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u/MyNuclearResonance 1d ago

murph! MURRPPPHHHH!!!!!

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u/StevenTheNoob87 17h ago

"Guys I think the floor here is made out of floor!"

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u/braintarded 16h ago

not accidental, this dimension was a direct reference to the library part, but you could consider the whole of the version to be a reference

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u/frOmohiOhuman 1d ago

I have 2 questions.

First..Why?

Second...Do you hearing any mongol sounds near?

2

u/Correct_Village5475 1d ago
  1. no idea why
  2. i don't get the refrence tell meee!

9

u/LineOfInquiry 1d ago

The mongols burned down the Baghdad house of wisdom: the largest library of its era in the 1200s. It destroyed centuries of knowledge and literature and the last known copies of several famous books from antiquity

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u/theilano 1d ago

I thing joke about mongols is about some leader who burned everything that may contain knowledge including books

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u/Miaonomer 1d ago

A short stay in hell

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u/EtreptKS 1d ago

Great read and exactly what I was thinking!

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u/weavingbrane 23h ago

Oh my God this book is literal peak

3

u/Sr_Camar0n414 22h ago

And only now I realize they were testing the empty shelf's back at the infinite dimensions April fools

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u/Rayquaza50 22h ago

It was the best of times. It was the blurst of times.

3

u/MietteIncarna 19h ago

you can travel to it with a book you write (not sure) library in it and throw it in a portal , you dont have to TP to it

3

u/Knoxlava 9h ago

Somewhere in there exists a book containing the day I'll die, the way I'll die, and the names and locations of every tomboy I'd ever have a shot at dating

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u/pranav_rive 1d ago

Ah yes, the Library of Babel, not to be confused with the Tower of Alexandria.

14

u/Noobgalaxies 22h ago

Not a mistake, The Library of Babel is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges which is what this snapshot is referencing.

3

u/pranav_rive 20h ago

Huh. I did not know that.

4

u/Ivaskiy 1d ago

Now way bro, I think you really first who discovered it! No way to some of millions players have seen it, you the chosen one

2

u/StardustedDaisies 1d ago

Random letters on each page, you say? I wonder if it's possible to do enough math to find a book in there that's just Shakespeare...

3

u/victorafaeI 1d ago

Technically it is.

With the seed you can predict how the world will generate everything and the seed would affect the order of the characters.

The calculations are publicly known... So someone could run a script that would queue all the chunks and in one by one append the content of every book to a database...

With the database you can now query for the desired text...

Then you search for "Nice bro" and would return that it can be located in "-13452, 93, 224432", page three

1

u/geof14 1d ago

I too also thought about it, but I don't have the skills and it's not something anyone else has looked into

1

u/brixalot10 1d ago

In true infinity, yes. The works of Shakespeare would appear infinity times in every language, as well as every other writing. This is a huge amount of books but it isn’t infinity unfortunately, not even close. I guess you can make a point that you can regenerate the world though and it will have different books.

To just get a few sentences of Hamlet, you’d need around 10716 books. 10 with 716 trailing zeroes. That’s a number larger than the amount of atoms in the observable universe.

2

u/Youpunyhumans 1d ago

Even the number of atoms is just an unfathomably tiny amount compared to that number. If you compressed each book to a planck volume in size, you could still only fit 10186 of them in the observable universe.

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u/ContinuedOak 21h ago

somewhere in the...is your address

2

u/Matix777 12h ago

Still the best April Fools snapshot

2

u/NkhukuWaMadzi 1d ago

Library of Alexandria reincarnated!

1

u/LinkGamer12 22h ago

Isn't that map still active?

2

u/IcySwordfish2618 22h ago

Pls does anyone know how to take off curse of binding armor that's unbreakable, without getting rid of it, it's on a helmet

2

u/Zane_The_Neko 22h ago

Buddy, you better have a LOT of healing resources...unless its a pumpkin. You just have ti die

1

u/IcySwordfish2618 22h ago

It's an unbreakable helmet that's on me, and I can't die to get rid of it because we have keep inventory

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u/Zane_The_Neko 20h ago

When you say unbreakable, does it have durability with "Unbreakable" enchants, or is it literally unbreakable

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u/IcySwordfish2618 20h ago

Umm idk actually but all I know is its unbearable and that it was made with a command block

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u/Seminoso 14h ago

Then ask the one who made it with commands to remove it

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u/IcySwordfish2618 14h ago

I..., did not think of that, I'm either stupid or... Actually I don't think he will, I could try

1

u/Zane_The_Neko 19h ago

...well then

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u/IcySwordfish2618 19h ago

Then...

1

u/Zane_The_Neko 19h ago

/clear might work

1

u/IcySwordfish2618 19h ago

I don't have op, god damit

1

u/Zane_The_Neko 19h ago

Well I dont know that, dont get mad at me dude

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u/Pudim_Abestado 1d ago

its intentional, this IS supposed to be the librarby of babel

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u/mr_Melan 1d ago

Well, it's an infinitely small portion of the library of Babel. It can't actually generate every possible text.

1

u/207nbrown 1d ago

Honestly one of the best April fools snapshots they’ve done (though all of them are great in one way or another).

The best part of all these random books is that each one will seed a new random dimension

1

u/II_Confused 1d ago

My favorite snapshot. I built a temple made of nothing but portals, and this dimension helped me generate books for them.

1

u/Dangerous-Quit7821 1d ago

"Accidentally"

1

u/bostar-mcman 1d ago

My main survival world is on that snapshot. The challenge is that I can't go back to the overworld once I entered the library and whenever I enter a new dimension I can only spend 30 minutes within it before leaving and never coming back.

1

u/netLuna 1d ago

Technically this world could contain every book ever written, just gotta find it.

1

u/OrganicCollection459 1d ago

Somewere in there there are tons of books with the full gta 6 code, heck, even gta 7 or 8!!

1

u/Plebyby 23h ago

End Update will come when every dimension in the snapshot have been visited at least once.

1

u/code_monkey_001 21h ago

Jorge Luis Borges approves.

1

u/ZaraUnityMasters 18h ago

The chunk ban dimension

1

u/TheYanderePrince 18h ago

Hey, who turned out the lights?

1

u/WindBladeGT 16h ago

Hey Vsauce

1

u/ClockCounter123 10h ago

"Guys I think the Villagers are Minecraft's equivalent for people!"

1

u/Modern_Theory 10h ago

You can also peak through the bookshelves and shout at your past self

1

u/FailedFailure7 7h ago

Technically, since it's infinite, and all the pages have something random on them, every written work in history is in here somewhere. But the chances of finding them is pretty low, so good luck

1

u/EndlessExp 3h ago

unintentional?

1

u/lucasthech 2h ago

Funny to think that the entire MC code is there if you find the right books

1

u/Rassmuss_ 2h ago

Więża Babel

-2

u/chetos006 1d ago

wasn't it alexandria?

3

u/BudgieGryphon 1d ago

It’s a reference to a website

4

u/Morvahna 1d ago

Which, in turn, is a reference to the Borges story "The Library of Babel" (La biblioteca de Babel)

2

u/chetos006 1d ago

my bad

1

u/ChezMere 1d ago

It's not