Here is a handy chart that students might like to use:

100 centimeters = 1 meter
convert meters to centimeters by multiplying by 100
299792458 meters per second = C (speed of light)

29979245800 centimeters per second = C (speed of light)
1427583133 hertz = f (Frequency for Hydrogen)
21 centimeters = lambda (wavelength for Hydrogen)
7.004845999 X 10 -10 (period for Hydrogen) = T
0.0000000007004845999 seconds = T = period for Hydrogen

lambda is a letter of the greek alphabet used for wavelength

T is the letter used in physics to represent period
T= the time needed for just one wave (the period)

C is the letter used in physics to represent speed of light
hertz means “waves per second,” or frequency

velocity (speed of light) = frequency (hertz) X wavelength (lambda)
velocity = frequency X wavelength

T= period = 1/frequency (hertz)

wavelength (lambda) = velocity (speed of light) / frequency (hertz)

one second
1427583133
1010101000101110011000010011101
| – | – | – | – – – | – ||| – – || – – – – | – – ||| – |

one minute
85654987980
1001111110001011011110110010011001100
| – – |||||| – – – | – || – |||| – || – – | – – || – – || – –

one hour
5139299278800
1001010110010010110000110111001111111010000
| – – | – | – || – – | – – | – || – – – – || – ||| – – ||||||| – | – – – –

one day (24 hours)
123343182691200
11100000010111000010010100101101111101110000000
||| – – – – – – | – ||| – – – – | – – | – | – – | – || – ||||| – ||| – – – – – – -

Wow — great stuff. Thanks! My eyes hurt from reading it, but it was worth it. (Oddly, under Firefox, I get “403 Permission Denied”; but the images load under IE.)

I like the detailed rationale they give as to why they think it will be interpreted correctly; it still may be a stretch, but they make good arguments.

Here are some quotes I liked:

“The serifs on the binary “ones” are presented to stress that the units are different from those of pulsar length and period.” (RR: Bruce, this is the one you pointed out.)

“The large number of digits is the key that these numbers indicate time intervals, not distances or some other quantity. … There are no other
conceivable quantities that we might know to ten significant figures…”

“The problem of which end of a number is the most significant digit is expressed automatically in this formulation, since all binary numbers start with a 1 but end in a 1 or a 0.” (RR: this is how you know to read the binary numbers correctly, which is in the direction I’ve drawn the arrows).

“The binary notation, in addition to being the simplest, is selected in order to produce a message that can suffer considerable erosion and still be readable. In principle, the reader only need to determine that there were two varieties of symbols present, and the spacings alone will lead to a correct reconstruction of the number.”

Yes, it was scanned many years ago, but it appears whoever did the scanning did not understand what to do. Instead of saving it as a text file, the article is saved as artwork, as a jpg file. You will have to save the web pages that it is on, and then use adobe photoshop or microsoft paint to open it and zoom it and read the very grainy text.

Each piece of the article is located here:

http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/plaque-1.jpg
http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/plaque-2.jpg
http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/plaque-3.jpg
http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/plaque-4.jpg

Have a good day,

Bruce Steo

Interesting, thanks. Any chance that 1973 article is online somewhere?