Byte InsightIntelligent Life
Frank Drake, a famous astronomer, suggested that intelligent life out there in the universe may contact us by sending radio pulses. The SETI project (now disbanded) monitored radio signals from all over the galaxy in an effort to see if some alien life form was trying to contact us. Once, while monitoring the heavens, the attached message came in, repeated many times:
Scientists realised that it was not artificial. The same 551-bit pattern was repeated thousands of times. They figured out that it must be a message, but how do you interpret it? A mathematician found that 551 is a prime number, and can be factorised as 19 by 29. Perhaps it forms an image if interpreted as dots? Plot the message in an array of 19 X 29 (or maybe 29 X 19), and determine if it has any meaning.
Store the code in a Text file, and read them into your program when needed.
Schklovskii, IS and Sagan, C . 1996 . Intelligent Life in the Universe Delta publishers.