NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The information in this document was accurate as of the original publication date.

Audience: Educators
Grades: 9-12


Students see how computer data is protected from damage by radiation glitches by using a simple error-detection method involving the parity bit. They will reconstruct an uncorrupted sequence of data by checking the eighth bit to see if the transmitted data word has been corrupted. By comparing copies of the data sent at different times, they reconstruct the uncorrupted data. A one-page teacher guide accompanies the one-page assignment.

Problem 14, Correcting Bad Data Using Parity Bits  [66KB PDF file]

This mathematics problem is part of Space Math III.