Fermilab Calls For Code Crackers 392
atrocious cowpat passes along a call for help from symmetry magazine, the joint publication of Fermilab and SLAC, noting: "Could be just plain gibberish, it could be something like those wonderfully weird letters to the Mount Wilson observatory, or it could be a message from aliens who just happened to have gotten their hands (tentacles/exoskeleton) on a fax machine." "A little over a year ago, the Fermilab Office of Public Affairs received a curious letter in code (4.4-MB image here). It has been sitting in our files all that time and we haven't had much of a chance to look into breaking the code, nor are we particularly expert at this!"
Re:Well, obvious stuff: (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It says "Welcome to the Slashdot effect." (Score:3, Informative)
http://filebin.ca/skpzc/fnalcodeletter.jpg
Mirrored Copy (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pixabug.com/aliens/fnalcodeletter.jpg
http://www.pixabug.com/aliens/fnalcodeletter_sanesize.jpg
Happy Cracking
Coral cache (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm not positive about my translation (Score:3, Informative)
Because it is made from eggs.
Digitized (Score:4, Informative)
33323132212331
2111331132312233
333212123213113
311333313331111
211333323232211
232313331121231
33231312
f0be58f2fd63
6c79d2e493e6
S f c
111212112121212121121212121112121121
1121121121211121211211121211211121111
1111212121121121211121212121112111211
2111212112112111211121112111211121112
111211211121112121121112122211121211
1212112111211121112112111212121112111
211211211121121112112111212112111212
112121211
Re:I'm not positive about my translation (Score:1, Informative)
So a round is an oval but an oval is not a round.
Re:Well, obvious stuff: (Score:3, Informative)
The frequency of 3's in the first stanza is disproportionately high.
The pattern '1,1,1,2,1' appears several times in the third stanza.
Re:Digitized (Score:2, Informative)
ternary = 720113244210716512990341782103795379056660114385796527
hexadecimal = 74506518313470710988407084006
binary = 4785997412726154595979555835418260996622867313584208882680343839351760783444564
Of course, this assumes also that these are supposed to be read left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and that the most significant digits come first. Can anyone else confirm these values?
Re:The raw numbers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Google recruiting? (Score:4, Informative)
Real problem solvers comment here (Score:5, Informative)
Re:FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE (Score:4, Informative)
remove the linebreaks from the first block, interpret # of lines as trinary digits 0,1,2 (|->0, ||->1, |||->2) and you get
212 122 220 001 021
222 120 211 012 201
000 220 021 201 122
222 101 012 102 002
200 222 202 220 002
002 222 121 211 022
120 222 001 012 022
120 201
Converting to alphabet by 000->a, 001->b,
xrybh pwftayhtr kflcs uycc qwip bfipt
Write a script to check possible letter substituions against a dictionary, and you find that the substitution cipher
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
nl o ki wu strdec hfa
converts this to "frank shoemaker would call this noise"; maybe a coincidence, but looking likely.
Re:Solved! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE (Score:2, Informative)
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
mnlp o k wuy xstrdec hfab
in case anyone wants to repeat the steps like I did.
Re:Real problem solvers comment here (Score:2, Informative)