We may have heard about the Morse Code, seen it in the movies (Parasite, Raazi?) or read about the existence of it. Today, let us discover the origination of the system which revolutionized long-distance communication and take away a lesson in case we ever need to use it.
In Case you are wondering, no, the above is not a typographical error. It’s the Morse code, a system which helped revolutionize the long-distance communication in the world. In the Morse code every character is represented by a unique series of dots and dashes. To help decipher the same, use the key for reference.
Invented by Samuel Morse (and named after him too) and Alfred Vail in 1838 by using the principles of electromagnetism, they sent long and short electrical signals over telegraph wires to convey the message. The short signals were known as the dits (and represented by the dots), whereas the long signals were known as the dahs (and represented by dashes). At the other end of the telegraph wire, a telegraph receiver was used to convert the electrical impulses to the dots and dashes, which would be further decoded by humans.
Developed with the idea that this code should be short, the most frequently used letters had the shortest symbols. For deciding which letters should have the shortest code, Morse followed a simple approach. In those days, newspapers were printed by putting individual letters in a block, then soaking the block with ink and pressing it against the paper. Hence, Morse counted the number of pieces of individual letters which were present at a newspaper press and not surprisingly, the maximum pieces were found to be for the letter ‘e’. And accordingly, the letter ‘e’ has the shortest and the simplest representation of a single dot. Contrastingly, the letter ‘q’ has a representation of dash dash dot dash.
Morse code has gone through its cycle of evolution, with the current official version being different from the first version developed by Samuel Morse, and its application changed from the wired telegraph transmission to radio transmission. After the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, an international agreement was signed to listen to the distress radio signals and ‘…—…’ (SOS) was adopted to be the international distress signal. Even though this requirement was removed in 1999, the US Navy continues to have sailors who can send and receive Morse Code.
Emergency tip- Even though we hope that you never find yourself stranded alone on a remote island, in case of such a situation remember the …—…, and you can even use blinking lights to send your message across in Morse. 🙂
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