High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In telecommunication, Hamming codes are a family of linear error-correcting codes that generalize the Hamming(7,4)-code invented by Richard Hamming in 1950. Hamming codes can detect up to two and correct up to one bit errors. By contrast, the simple parity code cannot correct errors, and can detect only an odd number of errors. Hamming codes are special in that they are perfect codes, that is, they achieve the highest possible rate for codes with their block length and minimum distance 3.