Smoke Signal. The smoke signal is one of the oldest forms of long-distance communication.
It is a form of visual communication used over a long distance. In general smoke signals are used to transmit news, signal danger, or to gather people to a common area.
In ancient China, soldiers along the Great Wall sent smoke signals on its beacon towers to warn one another of enemy invasion. The colour of the smoke communicated the size of the invading party.
By placing the beacon towers at regular intervals, and situating a soldier in each tower, messages could be transmitted over the entire 7,300 kilometres of the Wall. Smoke signals also warned the inner castles of the invasion, allowing them to co-ordinate a defence and garrison supporting troops.
In ancient Sri Lanka, soldiers stationed on the mountain peaks would alert each other of impending enemy attack by signaling from peak to peak. In this way, they were able to transmit a message to the King in just a few hours. Misuse of the smoke signal is known to have contributed to the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty in the 8th century BCE. King You of Zhou had a habit of fooling his warlords with false warning beacons in order to amuse Bao Si, his concubine. Polybius, a Greek historian, devised a more complex system of alphabetical smoke signals around 150 BCE, which converted Greek alphabetic characters into numeric characters. It enabled messages
It is a form of visual communication used over a long distance. In general smoke signals are used to transmit news, signal danger, or to gather people to a common area.
In ancient China, soldiers along the Great Wall sent smoke signals on its beacon towers to warn one another of enemy invasion. The colour of the smoke communicated the size of the invading party.
By placing the beacon towers at regular intervals, and situating a soldier in each tower, messages could be transmitted over the entire 7,300 kilometres of the Wall. Smoke signals also warned the inner castles of the invasion, allowing them to co-ordinate a defence and garrison supporting troops.
In ancient Sri Lanka, soldiers stationed on the mountain peaks would alert each other of impending enemy attack by signaling from peak to peak. In this way, they were able to transmit a message to the King in just a few hours. Misuse of the smoke signal is known to have contributed to the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty in the 8th century BCE. King You of Zhou had a habit of fooling his warlords with false warning beacons in order to amuse Bao Si, his concubine. Polybius, a Greek historian, devised a more complex system of alphabetical smoke signals around 150 BCE, which converted Greek alphabetic characters into numeric characters. It enabled messages
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