Off Topic: Governor General's Coat of Arms has a binary stream [was: OT-GG binary]

[Thomas Milne]

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 12:47 PM, Ijaaz A. Ullah
<ijaaz-UwkSZrAjFfdkDLQDXwjzI9BPR1lH4CV8 at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 12:21 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh-pmF8o41NoarQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> | From: teddy mills <teddymills-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>
>>
>> | http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Personal_Coat_of_Arms_of_Governor_General_of_Canada_David_Lloyd_Johnston.jpg.jpg
>> |
>> | any ideas?
>>
>> What's with the .jpg.jpg suffix?
>>
>> The bitstream is:
>>  110010111001001010100100111010011
>>
>> 33 bits long.  Unlikely to be a fixed-width character set.
>>
>> Googling shows me that /. covered this:
>>  <http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/10/04/0334211/The-Binary-Code-In-Canadas-Gov-Gen-Coat-of-Arms>
>>
>> My favourite pair of comments:
>>
>>    110010111001001010100100111010011 is 33 successive digits of pi (in
>>    decimal/binary/ternary/etc.). Cunningly, he did not choose the first
>>    33 digits, of course.
>>
>>    Neither the 33 last. I can tell because I just checked it.
>
> I saw that earlier today too, I was about to post the same thing here :)

Not sure if this is relevant, but it reminded me of a show I just saw
last week, The Story of Maths. I was astounded to learn that binary
predates computers by hundreds of years. Binary was 'invented' by
mathematicians in India and China, IIRC, about a thousand years ago.

-- 
TBM
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