When was the last time you opened a file and noticed a computer glitch? “Never” is the usual answer. Yet the underlying hardware makes continual errors: disks make errors, the internet loses packets of data, wifi signals get corrupted and so on.

This lecture is about the secrets of the mysterious invulnerability that is Error Control Coding: a way of storing or transmitting information such that it knows it has been corrupted and can correct itself.

A lecture by Richard Harvey

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/error-control

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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