What Does Hamming Distance Mean?

A Hamming distance in information technology represents the number of points at which two corresponding pieces of data can be different. It is often used in various kinds of error correction or evaluation of contrasting strings or pieces of data.

Techopedia Explains Hamming Distance

While it may seem complicated and obscure on first glance, the Hamming distance is actually a very practical metric for measuring data strings. The Hamming distance involves counting up which set of corresponding digits or places are different, and which are the same. For example, take the text string “hello world” and contrast it with another text string, “herra poald.” There are five places along the corresponding strings where the letters are different.