New clue to Fermilab code

July 25, 2008 | 12:10 pm

Local media interest in deciphering the coded message that Fermilab received last year continues.  On Wednesday, Naperville Community TV came to the laboratory to interview me (I’m the Fermilab PR director) and Eric Prebys, a Fermilab physicist who worked with Frank Shoemaker at Princeton University.

Eric Prebys. Photo courtesy of Fermilab VMS

Eric Prebys. Photo courtesy of Fermilab VMS

Code crackers, who learned about the message from symmetry breaking, have determined that the first section of the message reads “FRANK SHOEMAKER WOULD CALL THIS NOISE.” Shoemaker, a physicist, worked at Fermilab in the early days of the laboratory.

The bottom part of the message, the on-line code crackers tell us, says “”EMPLOYEE NUMBER BASSE SIXTEEN.” What could this mean? Is “BASSE” a misspelling of “BASE”? To prepare for the TV interview, I called Fermilab’s Human Resources section to ask about Frank Shoemaker’s employee number.
Fermilab assigns employee numbers sequentially. Robert Wilson, the laboratory’s legendary first director, was employee number 1. Ned Goldwasser, Wilson’s deputy director, was 007. The latest Fermilab hire, as of last Monday, was number 15026.

According to Fermilab’s records, Frank Shoemaker was employee number 102. In base 16, I am told, 102 = 66.

Will this be the clue that cracks the hieroglyphic middle section of the coded letter? Or persuades the code maker to come forward?

Employee Number 10112

Judy Jackson
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One Response to “New clue to Fermilab code”

  1. ravin Says:
    July 25th, 2008 at 10:23 pm

    i just want to say that i don’t believe that it is hexadecimal or base 16 and i will expand that later

    i apologize for getting sidetracked again…to tell u the truth i am tired this evening

    though after reading this post this afternoon…i did look up base 16 tables again…it has been 20 years since i programmed…yet, back in 1999-2000 i took a networking and pc repair classes…the courses did 2 lessons on adding and subtracking in hex but not much more than that

    we all learn by stories…please, if i may…back in the late `80’s during my cobal class (for mainframes not pc) on the last program we had to do everything was going just fine

    when the numbers of my print out messed up..it was a payroll program…the idea was to use the database and then print out all the employees, the gross income and the net income for a period of time and a total of all columns

    all the names printed out…and the first person’s pay printed out correctly and the corresponding net income…in other words minus taxes…then every column of numbers was garbage…

    i spent hours/days on this thing…checked for typo’s cause back then the compiler just spit out a error message at yah and well, yah had to figure it out yourself

    there were no typos and of course the program was printing…all the employee names were printing and the first set of numbers was fine just everything after that was wrong

    i checked and rechecked and rechecked (u get it) the logic and decided the logic was fine because of what i just explained…i even attempted to start to decipher the hex dump…and thought…nah, it isn’t in there

    i thought well maybe the computer isn’t making the calculations right…so, since i grew up without a calculator…i started with the first employee…took his pay and as i was figuring out his taxes i realized my error…when i made the column for the net pay (this is hard to say) i put two spaces behind the decimal point instead of 4

    so, the first paycheck and net pay was correct after that the numbers were pushed over and became jubbled in the print out…so, i fixed my error…printed my program…gave it to my teacher…went to take my test which was in the computer room at the college and my fellow classmates stole my cobal manual with all my notes in it…of course, they payed programmers to do their programms and barely passed the test…

    moral of the story…KISS…keep it simple…

    just a side note…i just looked up this slashdot website’s posting and well there was a link to a princeton newsletter from november of 2006

    to find out that frank shoemaker has a white carin terrier…if it’s white it is a westhighlander…so, i bet his is like mine…my carrin is considered brindle but he lost most of the darkness in his 2 and 3rd year…and well, he isn’t really white but he glows in the dark because of the loss of the brindle color…of course he thinks he is hiding from me out in the middle of the yard at night…well, i just laugh and tell him…i can see him…

    have a good night, ravin ;))

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