Sunday, 5 July 2015

enigmatic puzzle - An Alien Message


A spacecraft was found orbiting earth. It was not made by us, but appears to be intended to be received by us. This is a transcription of the engraving on one of its many panels:



Some of the symbols are cut off because the rest of them can't be seen. It is assumed that this is meant to show that the symbols are repeat indefinitely.


The spacecraft contains many panels, each appearing to teach one basic concept with a set of symbols and their meanings. This is the first of such panels, and as such it attempts to teach one basic concept along with the symbols and meanings associated with them.



What basic concept are these symbols trying to teach and what does each symbol mean?




Hint:



Two more similar lines were found





Hint 2:



All the symbols relate to math, what does each symbol mean?






Hint 3:



These aliens don't seem to be interested in very complex math, they are just showing some basic symbols. Lines are read left to right, top to bottom. The first line says 1+1=2, followed by 2-1=1 on the second line.






While writing up a complete solution, I noticed two lines had slight errors. Line 4 should have the same L at the end in the top right as lines 1-3. The second line of the Hint 1 should have an instead of () in the top right of one box.





Answer



I think I see the pattern, My guess so far:



)) = $+$
(( = $-$
() = $\times$
)( = $:$
= $=$
L = end of line

thanks to @Thomas Blue, the alien use base-7 so for each line:
$1+ 1= 2$

$2- 1= 1$
$2+ 2= 4$
$4- 1= 3$
$4+ 2= 6$
$6+ 1= 10$
$3 \times 2 = 6$
$5 : 2 = 2.333333$
$30 + 1 = 31$

so I think the basic concept that the alien want to teach is Base-7 (I just learn how the floating point works on another base)



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