Turing Doodle

I was supposed to wake up early before my two year old boy so that I could get some work done, but alas, I got distracted by the neat little Turing machine puzzle put up by the guys at google. Just google “turing doodle” and there are tons of results about it, including videos of the solution. It is google’s way of paying tribute on the centenary of Alan Turing’s birth.

Like I’ve said, fun and addictive but there is still one part which puzzles me. The code for g = 01011 , o = 00011 , l = 01001 and e = 10000. My first thought was they were binary codes for the letters. That is also what’s being reported in several articles (and the other articles just parrot what they read.) But I just cannot figure out the coding scheme. For example g and e differ by 2 places in the alphabet, so I would assume their binary code differs by 1 bit, which is not the case. I’ll be glad if someone enlightens me on this.

PS: I just realized that applying a rotation and a reflection about a vertical line to g turns “google” to “doodle”, sort of.
PPS: By the way, have to thank the wife — who got some free time on her hands — for upgrading the blog.