From her bedroom window, Raven can see Rocket's window across the street. It is after bedtime, and talking is not allowed.
Rocket's flashlight blinks. Short, short, short. Long, long, long. Short, short, short.
Raven grabs her notebook. "That is a pattern," she whispers. "What do you notice about it?"
Nova sits on her windowsill, eyes dimmed for nighttime. "Here is a hint," she whispers back. "Short and long can stand for letters. Check page one of your code book."
Information is anything you want to tell someone, like a word, a number or a picture.
You can send information with patterns of sound or light. A set of patterns that stand for letters or ideas is a code.
Morse code is a famous code. It uses short signals called dots and long signals called dashes.
Versions of Morse code have been in use since 1844.
You can send Morse code with taps, beeps or flashes of light.
| Signal | Can it carry a Morse code message? |
|---|---|
| Flashes of a flashlight | ? |
| Taps on a table | ? |
| Beeps of a whistle | ? |
| A light that stays on and never changes | ? |
A code only works if the sender and the receiver both know it.
The patterns must be different enough that nobody mixes them up.
Morse code uses just two kinds of signals: short dots and long dashes.
Mixing dots and dashes in different orders makes many different letters.
Great start, code breaker! Tomorrow you learn enough Morse code to decode Rocket's message.