Enter the length of the strings and the characters of the first and second strings into the calculator to calculate the Hamming Distance, which is the sum of all the differences between corresponding characters.

Hamming Distance Formula

The following formula is used to calculate the Hamming Distance between two strings of equal length:

 HD = sum_{i=1}^{n} (s1_i neq s2_i)

Variables:

  • HD is the Hamming Distance
  • n is the length of the strings
  • s1_i is the i-th character of the first string
  • s2_i is the i-th character of the second string

To calculate the Hamming Distance, iterate over each character of the two strings. If the characters at the same position are not equal, increment the Hamming Distance by 1. Finally, the Hamming Distance is the sum of all the differences between corresponding characters.

What is a Hamming Distance?

Hamming distance is a metric used in information theory and computer science to measure the difference between two strings of equal length. It is named after Richard Hamming, an American mathematician and computer scientist. The Hamming distance between two strings is calculated by comparing each corresponding pair of bits (or characters) in the two strings and counting the number of positions at which the corresponding bits are different. For example, the Hamming distance between the binary strings 1010101 and 1001001 is 2, because the bits differ at the second and fifth positions. This concept is used in various applications including error detection and correction algorithms in computer science and genetics to measure genetic distance.

How to Calculate Hamming Distance?

The following steps outline how to calculate the Hamming Distance:

  1. First, write down the two strings that you want to compare.
  2. Next, count the number of positions where the characters in the two strings are different.
  3. Finally, the total count of different positions is the Hamming Distance.

Example Problem:

Use the following variables as an example problem to test your knowledge.

String 1: “101010”

String 2: “111010”