 Such codes were first constructed by R. C. Bose and S. S. Shrikhande in 1959.If "n" is the size of the Hadamard matrix, the code has parameters formula_12, meaning it is a not-necessarily-linear binary code with 2"n" codewords of block length "n" and minimal distance "n"/2.The construction and decoding scheme described below apply for general "n", but the property of linearity and the identification with Reed–Muller codes require that "n" be a power of 2 and that the Hadamard matrix be equivalent to the matrix constructed by Sylvester's method.