An Introduction to Error-Correcting Codes

In the preceding chapter we mentioned the inevitable errors that occur when one tries to send quantum signals over, say, an optical fiber, even when there is no eavesdropper. But errors in transmission are not a problem just for quantum cryptography. For this entire chapter we forget about sending quantum information and instead focus on simply transmitting ordinary data faithfully over some kind of channel. Moreover, we assume that the data either is not sensitive or has already been encrypted. Unfortunately, many methods for transmitting data are susceptible to outside influences that can cause errors. How do we protect information from these errors? Error-correcting codes provide a mathematical method of not only detecting these errors, but also correcting them. Nowadays error-correcting codes are ubiquitous; they are used, for example, in cell-phone transmissions and satellite links, in the representation of music on a compact disk, and even in the bar codes in grocery stores. The story of modern error-correcting codes began with Claude Shannon's famous paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication,” which was published in 1948. Shannon worked for Bell Labs where he specialized in finding solutions to problems that arose in telephone communication. Quite naturally, he started considering ways to correct errors that occurred when information was transmitted over phone lines. Richard Hamming, who also worked at Bell Labs on this problem, published a groundbreaking paper in 1950 on the subject.