Hey, so imagine you get a notepad, look inside, and found something like this. 32.3543 -0.24354 23 2 12 4 31.3383 -2.87454 33.7583 3 1.66553 1 .... onwards ad infinitum, for about 10 pages. What do you think this could be? I mean, I know what they mean , but I need to find an (innocent) explanation. The guy who jotted them down doesn't want to explain the true purpose. Hope you can help me 'explain' them
yeah, lat longs or GPS coordinates Other possibilities could be IP addresses, ISBN numbers, phone numbers, safe combinations, complicated scoring of all his recent conquests
10 pages of just numbers? No words at all? I'm an especially paranoid sort, but honestly my first reaction would be "this is a coded message". The explanations above might make sense (to me) if it was one or two lines of numbers, but nobody writes down 10 pages of numbers without any words explaining what they are.
Coordinates? To where a killers bodies are buried.. Idk lol, Idk what coordinates look like. Wait..Um..Innocent? Ehhh. Attempting to write out the entirety of pi lmao Idk. Maybe he's secretly a maths genius or he claims to be one and he's like yeah man Stephanie in primary school, the maths off and she beat me reciting pi by ONE NUMBER!! Well no more Stephanie!! No more!! ...I'm so sorry I have noo idea.
Yeah well, most of the numbers are coordinates. But I need to find another explanation what these numbers are. Any takers? moose, IP addresses have possibilities, but I can't come up with a good explanation why someone would note them down.
If they are coordinates but you want it to be a mystery you need to write them down in some sort of code, otherwise readers are going to automatically assume they are coords and think your characters are stupid for not working it out.... May be they could be disguised as telephone numbers or radio freqs or something
Yeah, that's what I'm figuring now . No way is anyone thinking anything else but coordinates; the replies to this thread have convinced me. I'm thinking that hiding in plain sight and simply telling what they are might be the best way to deal with it. Yikes
If i wanted to hide some coordinates yet needed to write them down, I would write down lots and lots of coordinates most of which meant nothing in particular and hide the special ones in plain sight by remembering that they are the third, first, fourth second seventh etc (ie the numbers of pi or another unforgettable sequence) or alternately write them down and hide what they are recorded on (like for example record them on an SD card, and then hide the SD card in a slit in the inside of my belt , or in a pouch of SD cards)
Navigator here... the first four decimal numbers could be coordinates. The last two could also be, but are separated by an integer so probably not. Need to see more to see if the whole degrees go out of range (+/- 90.0000 latitude, +/- 180.0000 for longitude) Definitely not IP addresses, format xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (i.e., 192.168.100.1). I would incline toward some coded sequences, perhaps with a difference between the decimal numbers and integers?
I was gonna say this, but then I thought I'd recuse myself because my day job is "software engineer."
GPS coordinates are normally two numbers dot three numbers - two numbers dot three numbers like 59.098 - 03.274
You made my day I don't know yet if I can work with that (or something similar), but it definitely warrants thought and a good grin!
Yeah, but I still need an explanation for writing down coordinates in the first place. That 'simple' explanation I was looking for in a brainstorm proves to be tougher than I thought
Hah! You're the first who's remarked on integers strewn in! Sweet! @all: Follow up question: Let's assume that the decimal numbers will be recognised as coordinates. How do you explain to someone that you're writing coordinates down?
Who's doing the writing - if its soldiers its easily explained as soldiers write stuff down all the time - there is far too much to remember as a PC or whatever ... the proviso to this is that special forces largely don't write anything down if they can help it, if you are operating behind the lines you don't want to give an interogator something to ask you about if you're captured If you arent dealing with military go with written down and encrypted , or written down and hidden
It looks like they are sets of 4 number which can be either ints or floats. My immediate thought would be three spacial coordinates and a time value. It could also be a quaternion. Could you provide any more clues? The characters in your story will have context that we don't have. Who does the notebook belong to? If the owner is a sailor, I'd have a different set of assumptions than if the owner was an astronomer.
Could he pretend to be doing inventory? Hovel 1: 32 carrots 35 onions 43 candles 2 dozen eggs 35 yards ribbon 4 pigs 23 pcs firewood 2 horses Hovel 2: (etc.) Edited to add: Or timing things--32 seconds, 35 seconds, etc. Smaller numbers are easier to explain.
The owner is a fifteen year old kid (not a starship pilot or a quantum researcher ), who's trying to keep track of where he had been at different times during two years. He's moved around lots. He obviously doesn't want the others to know. And then this notebook gets found. Yeah I know, writing things down is stupid. He knows as well, but what should he be doing else? Any takers?
as i said write it code ... the sensible way forward is a simple alpha numeric code where instead of starting at A you put a memorable word at the front, so say he once had a crush on a girl called MaryBeth who was 26 his alpha numeric would go (the Cd being the next two letters of the alphabet not taken) m a r y b e t h c d 2 6 0 1 3 4 5 7 8 9 and his first code group 32.3543 -0.24354 23 2 would be written bm.bteb-r.mebtembm which means jack shit to anyone who doesn't know the code word ( Obviously a computer could crack it reasonably quickly but we are dealing with a 15 year old not the NSA)
Kodak and Hasselblad both used a system like this in the date codes for the cameras they manufactured. The code word for Hasselblad was VHPICTURES and for Kodak was CAMEROSITY with corresponding digits going from 1 to 0. So if you had a Kodak camera whose serial code started with "EO" then the camera was manufactured in 1946.
He's probably a statistician looking at the generation of numbers in a given set of seemingly rationally-manipulated positive/negative numbers.
Coordinates consist of latitude and longitude. Latitude is the distance north or south of the equator in degrees, from 0 (the equator) to 90N (north pole), or 90S (south pole). Longitude consists of distance in degrees east or west of the Greenwich Meridian in the UK, from 0 to 180W (the western hemisphere to (approximately as it zigs and zags) the International Data Line) and 0 to 180E, the eastern hemisphere. Fractional parts of a degree can be expressed as decimal, i.e., 38.75N, or as minutes, with 60 minutes to a degree. 38.75 degrees = 38 degrees 45 minutes. For doing computation, such as the distance and bearing between two points, decimal degrees and + and - are used instead of N, S, E or W, with south and west being negative. Really, they don't teach this in elementary school anymore? We had to use coordinates to find things on a map in the sixth grade.
