On the connection between Hamming codes, Heapsort and other methods

•Connection between seemingly unrelated algorithms.•Same derivation pattern, starting from a simple method, and improving.•Examples shown: Hamming codes, heapsort, binary search, tradeoffs for the Subset Sum problem.

A connection between Hamming codes and Heapsort is shown, namely, that they can both be derived, the first from straightforward error correcting codes and the second from a simple sorting method, using almost identical derivation processes. It is then demonstrated that the same process can work for other well-known methods. This might trigger similar derivations in the future.