Mary Wootters explains how error-correcting codes protect data from noise.
The most naive way to do this is just to repeat the data a whole bunch of times, but it’s better to use error-correcting codes to have the same idea but add less redundancy.
There are lots and lots of different types of error-correcting codes, and some are based on algebra and some are based on graphs.
This is a very sophisticated field of study, but the basic intuition is that you want to create a bunch of strings that are different from each other in at least two places.
Error correction is used in many applications, such as CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, and in any form of digital communication or storage.
It is also used in the field of quantum computing.
There are still foundational questions that are left to be answered in error correction.
