* * * * *
It took Rizzo a few hours to get everything properly set up. I did some
arithmetic while he worked. If the message was in binary code, that
meant that every cycle of the signal--every flick of the dancing line
on our screen--carried a bit of information. The signal's wavelength
was 5000 Angstroms; there are a hundred million Angstrom units to the
centimeter; figuring the speed of light ... the signal could carry, in
theory at least, something like 600 trillion bits of information _per
second_.