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Morse Code


Can you hear me SOS?

Have you ever wondered what can you do to call for help when you’re stranded in a deserted island with no phone/internet? You’ve probably heard of SOS, an international distress/emergency signal. But what does it really mean?

Morse code was created in the 19th century by Samuel FB Morse as an electronic communication. The Morse code transmits letters and numbers using patterns of two kinds of signals: those of short duration (represented by a dot •), and those of long duration (represented by a dash –). The length of each symbol is approximately inverse to the frequency of occurrence of the letter in text of the English language. (E, the most common letter in English, has the shortest code: a single dot •).

So the international distress signal, SOS is used based on Morse code which is •••–––•••. This set of signal is chosen because it is hard to be misinterpreted as being a message for anything else. Therefore, SOS does not generally mean anything in English, it is not an abbreviation for anything. It is simply used so that it can be easily interpreted and identified during an emergency.

Morse code is designed so that it can be easily generated with some improvised method, such as turning on and off a light, tapping on an object or making sound with long and short duration. The word “SOS” that is written can also be easily identified by people. This makes Morse code one of the simplest and most versatile methods of telecommunication. Isn’t it clever to use Morse code and send out the SOS signal with so many ways?

Fun Facts

Before Morse code was created, messages were sent in the form of letter, carried by horses. In the 19th century, Samuel Morse received a letter from a messenger on horseback, telling him that his wife was sick. He was quite far away from his wife, and he rushed to her side. But by the time he got there, she was no only dead, but she had already been buried. Morse was very upset that message carried on a horse was so slow, that made him worked on faster electronic communication, hence the birth of Morse code.


Keywords

  • Abbreviation: A shortened form of a word or phrase. For example: SOS’s abbreviation is not “Save Our Ship” or “Save Our Souls”.


Images


References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY_OIwideLg&t=137s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code