This book grew out of our lectures given in the Oberseminar on 'Cod ing Theory and Number Theory' at the Mathematics Institute of the Wiirzburg University in the Summer Semester, 2001. The coding the ory combines mathematical elegance and some engineering problems to an unusual degree. The major advantage of studying coding theory is the beauty of this particular combination of mathematics and engineering. In this book we wish to introduce some practical problems to the math ematician and to ad ...