Morse code is a system of encoding text into sequences of dots and dashes, called "morse." This method has been in use for centuries, and today it’s commonly used as an alternative to texting. Morse code was invented by Samuel F.B. Morse (1791–1872), along with Alfred Vail (1804–1859), who helped design the system that became known as the “Morse alphabet.”
Rather than being a cipher or shorthand, Morse code is a complete substitute alphabet, where each letter from A to Z, and digit 0 to 9, has its own unique dot-dash sequence.
The idea was originally proposed by Samuel Morse as an electrical telegraph communication system. He wasn’t alone in this effort, either: Alfred Vail also contributed to its design.
Because there are so many letters and digits in the English language, some were given more complex patterns than others. In fact, at first glance, you may think the sequences look random. But they weren’t. They were based on frequency of use, and designed to make most messages shorter to transmit faster. After all, the goal of using Morse code was to reduce the number of symbols sent per message — fewer symbols equals faster transmissions.
Alfred Vail, who designed much of the Morse code alphabet
More commonly used letters received shorter sequences; less-used ones had longer codes. The most frequently used letters in English are E, T, and A, for example. Because they appear frequently in everyday English sentences, their morse sequences have fewer symbols. In fact, E appears more frequently than any other letter in the English language. And because of that, E was assigned a single dot. It is also why the letter I and S are assigned to two dots or three dots respectively, since those letters are very common.
But what about the other letters? Some are simply not used often enough in our day-to-day conversations. J, Q, Y, and Z appear infrequently in the English language. So they are assigned more symbols. The least commonly used letters have the longest Morse sequences. For instance, the letter Z is composed of four elements: dash, dot, dash, dot.
There’s another important part of Morse code, though: timing. Morse code uses specific intervals to separate symbols, letters, and words within a sentence.
A gap between symbols within a letter: one dit. This means the space between two symbols is equivalent to one dot (dit) duration.
A gap between letters in a word: three dits. If you’re transmitting multiple letters, such as EK or HI, the space between them is three dits.
A gap between words: seven dits. Finally, if your message contains multiple words, like “Hi John,” the space between them is seven dits.
What’s the speed of sending Morse code?
At 20 words per minute, a dot will take approximately 92 ms (a tenth of a second). A dash will take approximately 276 ms, or three times the dot.
So now, you know how the individual characters in Morse code work, and how you can send them!