Singleton Bound - Proof

Proof

First observe that there are many q-ary words of length, since each letter in such a word may take one of different values, independently of the remaining letters.

Now let be an arbitrary q-ary block code of minimum distance . Clearly, all codewords are distinct. If we delete the first letters of each codeword, then all resulting codewords must still be pairwise different, since all original codewords in have Hamming distance at least from each other. Thus the size of the code remains unchanged.

The newly obtained codewords each have length

and thus there can be at most

of them. Hence the original code shares the same bound on its size :

Read more about this topic:  Singleton Bound

Famous quotes containing the word proof:

    The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.
    Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

    If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how, then, with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books, should be forbid.
    Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    When children feel good about themselves, it’s like a snowball rolling downhill. They are continually able to recognize and integrate new proof of their value as they grow and mature.
    Stephanie Martson (20th century)