Hamming code

A Hamming code is an error-correcting block code. The code is named after Richard Hamming who developed it in the 1940s. At the time, Hamming worked with machines that had relays and used punched cards to read the data. Because they were heavily used, the punched cards often had errors, which needed to be corrected by employees.

Hamming codes are used for digital signal processing and telecommunications. Hamming codes are generated according to certain rules. Hamming codes use multiple parity bits. A parity bit tells whether a group of bits is even or odd. In a Hamming code, each bit of data is covered by several parity bits. This allows to detect errors, and in certain cases, to correct them as well.