A Puzzle
You're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse (bear with me!). You're hiding out in a building, and you have a flashlight. You look out of the window and see a light. That must be another survivor hiding out nearby, because zombies don't use flashlights. You flash back at them, thinking it would be cool to survive together[1].
Then, they flash back at you. But not just randomly - there's clearly some method to their flashing. You realise they're using Morse code. You know that in Morse code each letter of the Roman alphabet is assigned a series of long and short flashes, but you have no idea what letter has what sequence.
In this scenario...
a) Do you think you could pick up Morse code through observing the other person's meaningful flashes? Let's assume that they are in English and that the other person really does know Morse Code and is not pretending.[2][4]
b) If you flashed randomly back, how long do you think it would take the other person to realise that you're doing it at random (i.e. you're not, for example, applying Morse code to a different language).
c) What would you do next? :) You may bear in mind footnote 1 for this one!
[1] Please ignore any knowledge gained from zombie movies that getting together with other survivors always ends up in at least one party getting killed.
[2] Is your answer different if you know the code for SOS but not for any other letters?[3]
[3] It just struck me that it would make more sense to flash SOS back at them repeatedly, if you knew how to do it, than to flash randomly. At least then they would know you were trying to communicate.
[4] Actually, I have no idea how to distinguish between each letter in Morse code. Is there some sort of significant pause between each letter, so you know whether that short belonged with the previous long or should go with the next short? And then a more significant pause between words? It must be difficult to master.
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Postscript: I'm actually interested in how you might recognise a particular language from Morse code. Because that's a bit like looking for a known language in an undeciphered script, isn't it?
Then, they flash back at you. But not just randomly - there's clearly some method to their flashing. You realise they're using Morse code. You know that in Morse code each letter of the Roman alphabet is assigned a series of long and short flashes, but you have no idea what letter has what sequence.
In this scenario...
a) Do you think you could pick up Morse code through observing the other person's meaningful flashes? Let's assume that they are in English and that the other person really does know Morse Code and is not pretending.[2][4]
b) If you flashed randomly back, how long do you think it would take the other person to realise that you're doing it at random (i.e. you're not, for example, applying Morse code to a different language).
c) What would you do next? :) You may bear in mind footnote 1 for this one!
[1] Please ignore any knowledge gained from zombie movies that getting together with other survivors always ends up in at least one party getting killed.
[2] Is your answer different if you know the code for SOS but not for any other letters?[3]
[3] It just struck me that it would make more sense to flash SOS back at them repeatedly, if you knew how to do it, than to flash randomly. At least then they would know you were trying to communicate.
[4] Actually, I have no idea how to distinguish between each letter in Morse code. Is there some sort of significant pause between each letter, so you know whether that short belonged with the previous long or should go with the next short? And then a more significant pause between words? It must be difficult to master.
---
Postscript: I'm actually interested in how you might recognise a particular language from Morse code. Because that's a bit like looking for a known language in an undeciphered script, isn't it?