In this digital age, we are heavily reliant on satellites to communicate from one place to another. The radioactive waves allow us to transfer any message from any place over the globe within no time. However, in the past, communication wasn’t a piece of cake. A single message used to be conveyed in several days; it encouraged Samuel Morse to introduce the Morse code. The Morse code is basically the sequence of dots and dashes that represent alphabetic characters and numerals, and it became a popular way of communication during the 1800s.
Morse code, the invention of Samuel Morse, came out as a blessing, as it revolutionized the way of communication back in the 1800s. Many people consider Morse code obsolete, but that’s not the case because it still lives on in the digital age in multiple ways. If you are wondering why Morse code is still found crucial in the digital age, then you have landed at the right spot. In this article, we will dig deeper into Morse and let you know about its functionality and application in the current era. So let’s get started without any further ado!
How Morse Code Came into Existence?
Samuel Morse, the father of Morse code, was a painter by profession, and he had to visit Washington DC for a job in 1825. During his stay over there, he received tragic news via a letter of the death of his wife. The news came to him after several days of the incident, and he couldn’t attend the funeral of his wife. This might be one of the reasons that urged Samuel to invent a communication system to pass a message from one place to another.
Samuel Morse was also one of the developers of the telegraph that was built first in the 1830s. His knowledge in science was limited, but his keen interest in electricity led him to build a prototypical telegraph that sent out pulses of electric current via wire. The pulses made their way into a receiver, and each pulse represented a character for transmitting a message. This is where the Morse code came into existence. Initially, this code had several limitations that were overcome by Samuel alongside Alfred Vail. They both worked on refining and expanding the Morse code system for wired communication.
The Functionality of Morse Code
As earlier mentioned, Morse code is the system in which the alphabets, numerals, and punctuation marks are depicted through a series of dots and dashes. Each character has its own representation in dots and dashes. Only the letter E has a simple representation, as it’s denoted with a dot “.”. On the contrary, the other letters and symbols have complex and intricate Morse code representations.
What we see today is somewhat different from the invention of the Morse code. Due to some difficulties with understanding extra strings of dashes and dots, some changes were brought to refine the Morse code. Today, it’s known as the International Morse code. In the simplified version of Morse code, a dash is equal to three times of dot. Some letters might consist of several dots and dashes. In such a case, it is essential to give a pause between each component that is equivalent to one dot. Individual words are separated from one another with even longer pauses, which consist of seven dots.
How Morse Code is Used: Past and Present
In the past, the Morse code was explicitly designed for the telegraph. However, with time, people found multiple other ways of using Morse code. The International Morse code was used by some visual media. This code was used by a navy pilot during the Vietnam War to let his allies know that he was being tortured. If we look at the present time, we haven’t seen the application of Morse code due to the availability of satellites. But in the US army, the training for mastering Morse code is still given to the intelligence specialists. The Preservation Society of International Morse Code is still using the Morse code. It might seem that there’s no work left for Morse code in this digital age. But that’s not true at all!
Final Words
We hope that you have found this blog helpful in understanding the Morse code. Samuel Morse came out with this revolutionary way of communication after going through a tragedy. Since then, several changes have been made to the original version of the code. However, we cannot forget the person who has sown the initial groundings of this system and made it possible for people to transfer a message from one location to another. If you wish to interpret any text written in the Morse code, the easiest way is to use the Morse code translator. This online service will let you know about the text hidden behind a Morse code in no time.
We hope that you found this blog helpful. Stay tuned for more!