Earlier in his talk, the Schoen mentioned that this message was (in what’s obviously a fictional scenario ginned up to make this mathematical exercise more interesting to a bunch of musicians who are assumed not to give a shit about math) addressed to a Nip naval officer. Given that context, Lawrence cannot but guess that the first word of the message is ATTACK. This would mean that 17 represented T, 14 C, and 20 K. When he fills these in, he gets