Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum here. Samuel F. B. Morse was a successful
Speaker 1: businessman and a presidential portrait artist. But above all else,
Speaker 1: he's remembered for his eponymous Morse Code, an elegant system
Speaker 1: that revolutionized communications back in the eighteen hundreds. Even in
Speaker 1: the heyday of Silicon Valley and social media, there's still
Speaker 1: a place for this well worn code. Just ask the
Speaker 1: US Navy. It's one of the languages that cryptologic technicians
Speaker 1: learn while training at the Center for Information Dominance, as
Speaker 1: a forerunner to email, text messages, and other near instant
Speaker 1: messaging media. Oh, we think Morse Code deserves a tip
Speaker 1: of the hat, so today let's tell the story. Parts
Speaker 1: of Samuel Morse's backstory read like a tragic Hollywood screenplay.
Speaker 1: He was born in Massachusetts on April twenty seventh of
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety one. National painter Morse found himself working on
Speaker 1: a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette in eighteen twenty five.
Speaker 1: The job had taken him to Washington, d C. Where
Speaker 1: he received a devastating letter. According to the Dispatch, his
Speaker 1: young wife had died back at their home in New Haven, Connecticut. Worse,
Speaker 1: by the time Morse got this message, it was too
Speaker 1: late for him to return in time for her funeral.
Speaker 1: She was laid to rest without him. Such was the
Speaker 1: pace of most long distance communications in those days. But
Speaker 1: Morse was one of the entrepreneurs leading the way into
Speaker 1: the future. He was one of the developers of the
Speaker 1: first telegraphs built in the eighteen thirties. To call any
Speaker 1: loan scientist or inventor the father of this technical breakthrough
Speaker 1: would be misleading. Morse was just one of the visionaries
Speaker 1: behind the telegraph's early development. Despite his limited scientific background,
Speaker 1: Morse had a real passion for electricity. In eighteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: he showcased a prototypical telegraph that he had built at
Speaker 1: a public demonstration. Like all telegraphs, his sent out pulses
Speaker 1: of electric current via wire. The pulses would make their
Speaker 1: way into a receiver. But this is where Samuel Morse's
Speaker 1: famous code came into play. A Morse's telegraph couldn't transmit
Speaker 1: voices or written characters, yet by capitalizing on those electric pulses,
Speaker 1: he devised a new way to send simply coded messages.
Speaker 1: He did have a brilliant partner by the name of
Speaker 1: Alfred Vail, who helped him refine and expand the system.
Speaker 1: Under the code, every letter in the English language, along
Speaker 1: with most punctuation marks, and each digit from zero through nine,
Speaker 1: was given a unique corresponding set of short and long pulses.
Speaker 1: Long pulses came to be known as dashes, while the
Speaker 1: short ones are called dots. In this early iteration of
Speaker 1: the code, some dashes lasted longer than others, and the
Speaker 1: spaces between pulses varied widely depending on the context. Morse
Speaker 1: soon got the chance to show off his electric cipher.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty three, Congress gave him a thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars grant to build an experimental long distance telegraph between Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. And Baltimore, Maryland. The moment of truth came
Speaker 1: on May twenty fourth of eighteen forty four. Sitting in
Speaker 1: the US Capitol's Supreme Court Chamber, Morse sent a coded
Speaker 1: message along to Vail, who was waiting in Baltimore at
Speaker 1: the other end of the line. A Morse had his
Speaker 1: message ready. At the suggestion of a friend's daughter, he
Speaker 1: transmitted a quote from the Biblical Book of Numbers. What
Speaker 1: hath God wrought a little intense but perhaps appropriately so
Speaker 1: A long distance telegraph lines spread like wildfire over the
Speaker 1: next few decades, so did Samuel Morse's code. During the
Speaker 1: Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln used it to keep abreast
Speaker 1: of battlefield developments, and when Western Union completed the first
Speaker 1: transcontinental telegraph line in eighteen sixty one, A Lincoln received
Speaker 1: its first message, a dispatch sent all the way from
Speaker 1: San Francisco to DC. But meanwhile, as Morse Code took
Speaker 1: hold in other countries, of problems emerged. To address these,
Speaker 1: a German telegraph inspector simplified the system in eighteen forty eight.
Speaker 1: Among other changes, he did away with the extra long
Speaker 1: dashes and revised many of the individual number and letter codes.
Speaker 1: After some additional tweaks were made, this new edition was
Speaker 1: dubbed International Morse Code. Meanwhile, the original version was retroactively
Speaker 1: labeled American Morse Code. Outside of Civil War reenactments, the
Speaker 1: latter is all but distinct Today. In the International code,
Speaker 1: a dashes pulse is three times longer than that of
Speaker 1: a dot. Each letter in the English alphabet is coded
Speaker 1: with a combination of one to four dashes and dots.
Speaker 1: Each numeral zero through nine is coded with a combination
Speaker 1: of five dashes and dots. If your deal with a
Speaker 1: letter that features multiple dots, band or dashes, there should
Speaker 1: be a pause equivalent to the length of one dot
Speaker 1: in between those components. The pauses that separate entire letters
Speaker 1: are longer equal to a dash or three dots, and
Speaker 1: individual words should be divided by even longer pauses, measuring
Speaker 1: seven dots long. Perhaps the most iconic Morse code phrase
Speaker 1: is SOS, a universally recognized distress signal. SOS was first
Speaker 1: adopted as such by German telegraphers in the year nineteen
Speaker 1: oh five. But why did they pick this particular letter combo.
Speaker 1: It's because in international Morse code, S is three dots
Speaker 1: and O is three dashes and dot dot dot dash
Speaker 1: dash dash dot dot dot is an easy sequence to remember,
Speaker 1: even when you're in grave peril. However, although Morse code
Speaker 1: was explicitly designed for the telegraph, people have used it
Speaker 1: in lots of other ways. With the dawn of radio
Speaker 1: telegraph machines in the eighteen ninety, coded messages could travel
Speaker 1: via radio waves, and it can be used visually too.
Speaker 1: Beginning in eighteen sixty seven, ships began using onboard blinker
Speaker 1: lights to flash more signals at each other. Then there's
Speaker 1: the case of Jeremiah Denton, Junior, an American Navy pilot
Speaker 1: and future senator. He was captured during the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: In a forced appearance on North Vietnamese television, Denton was
Speaker 1: coerced into saying that his captors were treating him well
Speaker 1: behind enemy lines, but his eyes told a different story.
Speaker 1: By blinking. In sequence, he used Morse Code to spell
Speaker 1: out the word torture. Later in the twentieth century, the
Speaker 1: code was largely phased out. The US Coast Guard hasn't
Speaker 1: used it in an official capacity since nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: and modern ships are far more reliant on satellite communication systems. However,
Speaker 1: the US Navy, as mentioned above, is still training its
Speaker 1: intelligence specialists in the code. Another group that's showing it
Speaker 1: some love is the International Morse Code Preservation Society, a
Speaker 1: coalition of amateur radio operators with thousands of members around
Speaker 1: the globe. So while the golden age of dots and
Speaker 1: dashes may be over, Morse's code is still hanging in there.
Speaker 1: No discressed signal is required Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article how Morse Code Works and Still Lives On
Speaker 1: in the Digital Age on how stiff works dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Mark Mancini. Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in
Speaker 1: partnership with how stiff Works dot Com and is produced
Speaker 1: by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my heart Radio.
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