Who Invented the Internet? And why? (Topic)

Have you ever wondered who actually invented the internet? Thanks to the world wide web, some craftsmen have become billionaires, but they just invented clever ways to use this tool.

Does this mean that the person who owns the basic copyright must be a trillionaire at all?

Who should be thankful for the internet

Okay, let's drop the money issue for now. To whom should we be grateful for this wonderful invention? A British botanist from a secret Swiss laboratory? American smart people trying to fight the Soviet nuclear threat? French scientists who chose to name their computer network gracefully - "Le Internet"? Or maybe we should thank many scientists and engineers at once, each of whom did something useful, but did not realize that, combined with other inventions, his work would grow into something so grandiose and significant?

First, let's try to clarify some concepts. The Internet is one thing, namely a huge number of computers connected to each other, and the World Wide Web ( World Wide Web ) is a little different. It is a way to facilitate the exchange of information between interconnected computers.

The Internet as we know it today has been in development for about 40 years. There is a widespread but incorrect theory that it was developed in the United States and was a communications system that could survive a nuclear conflict. However, one of the developers of the first computer network, called Arpanet, said that in the 60s of the last century, the first experiments with it aimed not at organizing communication, but optimizing the use of processors.

That is, the sharing of computing power by many scientists. Until that moment, networks as such did not exist. There were huge, room-sized machines called mainframes that could handle only one task at a time. With the advent of timesharing technology, these giants have the ability to handle multiple requests at once.

Obviously, once you start connecting computers together, it’s logical to ask yourself how to make communication between them easier. Scientists all over the world have tried to solve this problem. In the UK, there was a commercial network developed by the National Physical Laboratory, which was nipped in the bud by insufficient funding.

However, this is where the idea of packet switching was born. To avoid delays in congested networks, it was proposed to parse data at the time of transmission and reconnect them at the time of reception.

Not without the French

The French have also contributed. They worked on the creation of a scientific network "Cyclade", but, due to the same limited funds, they connected computers directly to each other, without the use of so-called gateways. This, of course, will not sound very scientific, but, according to some rumors or trustworthy sources, the result of their research was the emergence of the word "Internet" (from "Inter" - "between" and "Net" - "network") ... But you are free not to believe it, of course.

Enter the TCP / IP scene

By the early 70s, the computer infrastructure is already well developed, but communication is clumsy and fragmented, since different networks cannot communicate with each other. TCP / IP is the solution to this problem. TCP / IP is the basic communication language of the Internet, which marks data packets, ensures that they arrive at their destination and reassemble them correctly, even though each packet may follow its own route to the destination. Different networks began to communicate with each other in 1975, so this date can be considered the year of the birth of the Internet.

Also, a very important stage in the formation of the network is the invention in 1972 within the already mentioned Arpanet network of e-mail. Believe it or not, most of the internet traffic in 1976 was correspondence between scientists.

CERN

The next breakthrough came from an Englishman named Timothy Berners-Lee. He has worked for CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, where physicists from around the world are trying to figure out what the universe is made of.

Timothy decided to improve the process of processing information received by his colleagues, to enable them to easily share the results of their work and to be always in touch with each other. This, in his opinion, would allow faster progress in research. Berners-Lee developed an interface using HTTP, HTML and URL, which made it possible to create Internet browsers.

He called his own browser " World Wide Web ". That is, he invented the Web, but he did not invent the Internet. It is also worth noting that the same person created the first ever website (CERN, France, 1991).

First internet boom

Once the necessary initial infrastructure was in place and key technologies were developed, things began to move rapidly.

In the late 80s, there was a boom in bulletin boards, then telephone companies saw the potential of digital communication ... In the early 90s, only the lazy did not create web browsers ... Large sections of the population got access to e-mail, uninterrupted Internet quickly became available via all over the world ...

As a result, since 1995, most of humanity can no longer imagine their life without him.

Summarizing

The Internet exists because we need to communicate, and most of us love it. It is thanks to this feature that man has become the dominant species on Earth. It can be argued that the Internet is a natural evolutionary step and a manifestation of this need.

It was not invented by any specific genius, but when scientists and engineers from all over the world put together all the necessary components, the Internet became a tool for communication, trade, research, propaganda, espionage, business, dating, entertainment, shirking work ... Choose what you want, don't hesitate.

The Topic of Article: Who Invented the Internet? And why?.
Author: Jake Pinkman