The Binary Code In Canada's Gov-Gen Coat of Arms

Lev13than writes "Dr. David Johnston, formerly the president of the University of Waterloo, was installed as Canada's new Governor-General on Friday. As de facto head of state and the Queen's representative in Canada he is required to design a personal coat of arms. One modern detail has attracted particular attention - a 33-digit palindromic binary stream at the base. Efforts to decode the meaning of the number using ASCII, Morse, grouping by 3/11 and other theories has so far come up empty (right now it's a toss up between random, the phone number 683-077-0643 and Morse code for 'send help - trapped in a coat of arms factory.') Is 110010111001001010100100111010011 the combination to his luggage, or just a random stream of digits?"

Comments

The number is a Palindromic Prime in base 2.

[Anonymous Coward]

This number is a prime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindromic_prime in base 2.
In decimal it is: 6830770643

Re:Can't we just ask?

[Anonymous Coward]

He already told us the answer:

The wavy band inscribed with zeros and ones represents a flow of information, digital communication and modern media.

Re:The numbers are wrong (wild guess)

[Gobelet]

NATO aircrafts have OTAN printed on it because the two official languages used in NATO are English and French. OTAN means Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord.

Re:Random?

[Grant_Watson]

The blazon (the heraldic technical description) of the arms is what officially defines them, and it doesn't include the particular sequence of digits; it just says "in base a bar wavy Sable inscribed with zeros and ones Or."

So even if it means something, that particular sequence is just the artist's interpretation; somebody else who redrew the arms would be entitled to change it. Most likely, it's just what the artist liked visually.

Re:Can get even worse

[Phydaux]

http://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/
A blog that collects and translates (if possible) the tattoos of mostly Chinese/Japanese/Gibberish characters on people who aren't sure what they really mean.

Some of them aren't that bad, but others make you want to cringe.

Re:Can get even worse

[Antisyzygy]

Norse runes had meanings on their own, typically used in divination. I.e. you have a bag of runes and toss them on the table. Each one has an associated meaning like, property, heritage, success in war, protection, ect. The way they landed (rightside up, upside down, face up, face down) determined what they meant.