[Coming into focus. The 19quadrillion code is used to make photographic data sent back from space clearer.]
CNN — A British student says he’s cracked a 19 quadrillion-digit long code that’s been puzzling Nasa scientists for decades. Nasa have invited him to present his reach at a scientific conference in China.
19,342, 813,113,834,066,795,298,816: The number of digits in the code that student Cen Jung Tjhai says he’s cracked. The code is used to evaluate photographic data beamed back from satellites in space.
1,500: The number of university computers Tjhai used to crack the code.
27: Tjhai isa youthful 27 and a PhD student at the University of Plymouth, southern England.
35 mm: The first picture of space was taken on an Ansco Autoset 35 mm camera by U.S. astronaut John Glenn.
1920: The year Edwin Hubble trained his telescope onto the cosmos.
1990: The year the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into space aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
569 kilometers: The height above the earth at which the Hubble telescope orbits.
97 minutes: The amount of time it takes for the Hubble telescope to orbit earth while taking images of space.
Dugged!
http://digg.com/security/How_to_crack_a_19_quadrillion_digit_long_code
Could someone post a link to the original story or at least explain what this 19 quadrillion digit code is used for?
The story sounds interesting, but I have no idea what it’s talking about.
Just go to CNN and follow the link to their science and technology section. Hopefully the article is still there, but they didn’t say anything beyond what we gave here – as far as further links are concerned.
You might want to try NASA’s site and search for 19 Quadrillion – they may have more on it there….or you can just resort to Google 🙂
http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=1089611
Student cracks space code
A complex space code that has baffled Nasa scientists for three decades has been solved by a student at a British university.
In order to crack the transmission code, used to send information back from space, Cen Jung Tjhai used 1,500 computers at the University of Plymouth.
The PhD student had to evaluate millions of words from two codes used to correct mistakes in digital data sent by radio from space probes.
They were designed decades ago, and scientists had no way of knowing which one was best.
Now, Cen Jung’s success in finding out which is the best means that space scientists at Nasa should be able to count on better-quality images from their probes.
In just three weeks. the 27-year-old, from Indonesia, used the computer network to evaluate all 19,342,813,113,834,066,795,298,816 code words from each code to determine which of the two was better.
He will now travel to an international conference in China to present his work on the 19 quadrillion code to experts.
Cen Jung said: “Most space scientists thought this problem could not be solved but the university’s computer system acts like a super artificial brain and helped me find the solution.
“It is a really exciting development that opens up other possibilities – it could be used to help find the answers to some very complex medical and engineering problems, for example.”