Hamming Distance Calculator

Formula

The formula to calculate the Hamming Distance (HD) is:

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

Where:

\( HD \) 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

What is 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 characters in the two strings and counting the number of positions at which the corresponding characters are different.

Example Calculation

Let's consider an example:

First String: 1010101
Second String: 1001001

Using the formula to calculate the Hamming Distance:

\[ HD = 2 \]

This shows that with the given strings, the Hamming distance is 2, because the characters differ at the second and fifth positions.