Name: Anonymous 2005-05-10 3:14
I am trying to discover the orientation of the Arecibo message, the message beamed out into space in the '70s. Composed of 1679 bits, or zeroes and ones represented by differences in frequency, the bits of the message have a prime factorization of 23x73, an intentional hint that the diagram could be laid out in only a few particular ways in two dimensions. The resulting graphic of the message is fairly famous, and should be familiar. The way that an interceptor would choose to lay the diagram out is limited to a few options if they want a rectangle; and naturally they'd have to use their imaginations to glean anything whatsoever of worth from such an abstruse message, which makes so many tacit assumptions. The question I'm really asking then, is: in what order were the bits transmitted into space? I ask because the resulting bitmap is flipped either way on various websites (and you have to be particularly careful with respect to factual accuracy here because most of the websites with an image of the Arecibo message to begin with are dubious pop science). However, an imagegoogle on the exact phrase "Arecibo message" reveals various zero-one strings which seem to indicate that the message is set up beginning with six zeros, followed by a one. To 'read' the image correctly, then, (for westerners at least), the image would have to be oriented with the appropriate squares at the top left. What's really important is not how the picture's flipped, but the time order of the message. Is there an .mp3 of the message floating around? Any help is appreciated.
The fact that most pictorial representations of the message are 'flipped', so that you'd have to read from right to left, does bug me a bit though. It also maddens me how the laid out bit strings representing the message are usually NOT put into 23x73.
The fact that most pictorial representations of the message are 'flipped', so that you'd have to read from right to left, does bug me a bit though. It also maddens me how the laid out bit strings representing the message are usually NOT put into 23x73.