Reed-Solomon posted December 2013

The last things we studied in Arithmetic are the Reed-Solomon codes. It's a type of code you use to, not encrypt your information, but create redundant information in your final code. So when you read your code, if there are errors or missing parts, you can still decode it. It's not perfectly redundant like dog's ADN is. The redundant code is changed in a certain way so you can guess what the missing parts are.

A few days ago I was on the road to La Fête des Lumières (in Lyon) with 4 germans I met in Bordeaux. The driver had an old CD with a few mainstream and german songs on it that he wanted to play, problem, the CD was damaged, solution? None. Didn't need a solution. The CD still played, although sometimes it was indeed jumping, most of the time it was playing correctly. How is that?

Well, the information burned on the CD is coded thanks to Reed-Solomon's algorithm so that you can still guess what was burned on it through particular redundant code. This redundant code is (and I'm taking a guess here) what is used when your computer asks you "do you want to check if there was no error?" right after burning your CD.

more info on wikipedia