quade 4 #1 January 9, 2004 I don't know the answer, but here's the code. |•|••|||•••||||||••||•••| •||•••||||•|||•••|•|••|•• ||••••|•••||••||••||••••| Any guesses?quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Deuce 1 #2 January 9, 2004 Oh, it's made of Lego's. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #3 January 9, 2004 Lego is a major sponsor of the Red Rover Goes to Mars program run by the Planetary Society. The Red Rover Goes to Mars program is an educational outreach to students. BTW, they aren't normal Legos. They are aluminum so that they'll survive the mission.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Deuce 1 #4 January 9, 2004 Maybe that's why our lander worked. The intersolar power of Lego's! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skydivingchad 0 #5 January 9, 2004 Is that all that you want? Ok well here is the answser............... Yeah right!!! So here's my question for you about the pictures on the web site. When I looked at the different pics that they have posted, the small color picture with just 2 lines of code around the border has 2 sizes of dots along with the dashes. The black and white picture is not all that clear. I cannot tell if the dots are the same or 2 different sizes. Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug. Pelt Head #3 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #6 January 9, 2004 The photos of pre-launch DVDs with two lines are just place holders. If you look at those, you'll see that there isn't enough information to even attempt any decoding without some sort of key and even at that, it's just a repeating pattern all the way 'round the DVD. I think it's pretty safe to say that the real code is in binary and just a series of lines and dots that can be substituted for 1s and 0s. The code appears to be repeated three times on the DVDs. I assume to ensure that you can check them against each other if you can't, for some reason, quite make out one of the symbols. I think it's pretty safe to say that the 75 characters do not represent a pictograph like the 1974 Arecibo Message but rather an actual message that can be translated into English words.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Iflyme 0 #7 January 9, 2004 Hey, I was a member of the Planetary Society for years! Did you know that Bush is set to announce goals of a permenant human presence on the Moon and a manned mission to Mars?! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Deuce 1 #8 January 9, 2004 QuoteI think it's pretty safe to say that the 75 characters do not represent a pictograph like the 1974 Arecibo Message but rather an actual message that can be translated into English words. What's spooky, is that with all the really smart folks on this site, and with the advantage of thinking like humans (well, skydiver humans anyhow), nobody has cracked it yet. I'm just all exited about gettin me some 5051 aluminum Legos... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #9 January 9, 2004 QuoteDid you know that Bush is set to announce goals of a permenant human presence on the Moon and a manned mission to Mars?! Being set to announce and announcing at two different things. I'll believe it when it moves from rumor to reality.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AggieDave 6 #10 January 9, 2004 QuoteI'm just all exited about gettin me some 5051 aluminum Legos Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one that got excited thinking about that! You could build something cool, then add little tack welds and it'd stick together.--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Deuce 1 #11 January 9, 2004 QuoteQuoteDid you know that Bush is set to announce goals of a permenant human presence on the Moon and a manned mission to Mars?! Being set to announce and announcing at two different things. I'll believe it when it moves from rumor to reality. He better do something. That immigration idea went over like a lead balloon. A goal a little better than cheap day labor might be nice for the American ingenuity capability. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #12 January 9, 2004 Assumptions I've made and things I've tried so far. I assume the code is a binary representation of letters to be decoded into an English language phrase. Toward that end, I assume that a verticle line is equal to 1 and a dot is equal to 0. Here is, what I assume is the first step in the translation. 1010011100011111100110001 0110001111011100010100100 1100001000110011001100001 Simply feeding this into a binary to english translator results in gibberish. Actually, based on the number of bits in the message, 75, I sort of expected that. 75/8=9.375 so clearly the designers of the message don't expect us to decode this just by slamming it into a binary translator. Besides which, if this were a normal ascii binary to english message I'd expect to see a repetition of the pattern 010xxxxx every 8 bits. With the addition of the pattern 001xxxxx to indicate a space if indeed there are spaces in the message. Since this would be -highly- inefficient, I assume that the creators of the message simply dropped the portion of the repeating pattern. I also sort of assume they dropped the spaces and that spaces between words will be infered. So, what does that leave us with and what do we know? 75 bits. 75/25=3 (lines) 75/15=5 (hmmm) What if . . . I simply add 010 to the beginning of every 5 bits? Well, it still ends up in gibberish, but I think I'm getting somewhere. More later.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
indyz 1 #13 January 9, 2004 Baudot code maybe? That uses five bits per character. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #14 January 9, 2004 Interesting, I hadn't thought of that. I'll have to give it a shot in the morning. Screw it, I'm staying up for this. http://home.austin.rr.com/kinghome/signpage/baudot.html Well, I think you may be on to something with Baudot, but I'm going to have to try it from several different directions. Simply going from what I assumed was the first bit to what I assumed was the last bit was a batch of gibberish, but it does look promising.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
indyz 1 #15 January 9, 2004 I've run Baudot from a bunch of different directions and didn't get anything, but I'm pretty sleepy so maybe I missed something. I've basically ruled out Morse code as well, but I wouldn't discount some other variable character length encoding scheme. Where the hell did you find this? Can we safely assume that it contains a text string of some sort? I'd hate to do all of this work only to find out that it's a binary representation of pi or something. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nacmacfeegle 0 #16 January 9, 2004 "Maybe that's why our lander worked." Ah, I see what happened to the European missing to Mars. The Beagle must have used cheap plastic Lego, or even Duplo, as we are just new to the space thing.. D'oh!.-------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #17 January 9, 2004 Again, the English letter translation is just a working theory. I assume it's not a number sequence because, well, what fun would there be in that! Anyway, it -might- just be a simple Ceasar Cypher, but I haven't fooled around with that yet either. If you break the 75 bits up into 5 bit groups there -are- repeaters, so that's another clue that we're looking at an english subsitution cypher of some sort. I -do- sort of feel that the 75 bits is a major clue and I think 15 groups of 5 bits sort of makes sense from a typical cypher problem point of view. Again, these are all preconceived ideas though and maybe not what the authors intended. Direction-wise, the way the code is laid out on the disc makes me assume there are 4 possible ways in which to read it: left to right top to bottom, right to left top to bottom, left to right, bottom to top and right to left bottom to top. I assume the other four directions could be used, but that would just be cruel. I also assume the decoded message is not "Red Rover Goes to Mars" as that is 18 characters without spaces and 22 characters with spaces. I assume a message length of 15 characters -- it's just a feeling at this point. Lemme think a minute "Drink your Ovaltine"? 17 without spaces, 19 with. Ok, I think we're safe from the "Radio Orphan Annie" shenanigans. Ok, seriously, I -have- to go to bed or I'm just going to be a wreck this weekend, but there's another 5 bit code out there called the Murray code that's also worth looking into.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #18 January 9, 2004 Quote Where the hell did you find this? I found it on Mars!quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ltdiver 3 #19 January 9, 2004 Does this 'code cracking' fever remind anyone else of the movie "A Beautiful Mind"? ltdiver Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
arlo 0 #20 January 9, 2004 QuoteLemme think a minute "Drink your Ovaltine"? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest #21 January 9, 2004 It appears to be binary, and it resembles the binary code on the Pioneer 10 plaque, shown here. The Voyager probes also had something similar. It also resembles the code on the inner track of a CD or DVD. There should be some kind of key to get started. On the Pioneer plaque, there was a representation of a unit of measurement (a Hydrogen atom). mh"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bmcd308 0 #22 January 9, 2004 http://www.redrovergoestomars.org/factsheet_dvd.pdf According to this factsheet about the dvd, we are supposed to decode the message by looking at the pictures that come back from Mars. Brent ---------------------------------- www.jumpelvis.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nacmacfeegle 0 #23 January 9, 2004 "There should be some kind of key to get started. " I reckon its Yoda's zip code.-------------------- He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bmcd308 0 #24 January 9, 2004 Better Picture of the DVD ---------------------------------- www.jumpelvis.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jerry81 10 #25 January 9, 2004 QuoteBetter Picture of the DVD I think that's just a sample of how it looks like. No code, just a repeating pattern of sticks, ovals and dots. However, re: Quade's code; perhaps it's meant to be read from the inside out, like a normal cd, not outside in like this transcription? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
