The Internet has been named the most important invention in human history. We are still in the early stages of the development of this global computer network, but it is already changing everything in the way we work and live.
If it weren’t for the Internet, you probably wouldn’t be reading this now. However, how much do you really know about when the Internet was invented? Even if you are old enough to live through all this, much of this amazing story was not yet known back then.
So let’s walk through the development stages of this fantastic invention and learn some amazing facts along the way.
The Internet has been ‘invented’ as a military enterprise
Although people think of the Internet as what memes and Netflix bring them, it was invented for very serious reasons – the threat of nuclear war. The concern was that a single bomb could shut off communications across the country. Thus, a system that could continue to operate even if large parts of it were disconnected had a fairly high priority.
A scientist named J.C.R. Licklider, who worked for MIT and ARPA (now called DARPA
Information on the Internet comes in packages
When you watch a Netflix video or send an email, all of this information is broken down into many tiny information packets. Each one is independently sent across the web that makes up the Internet, and then reassembled at the other end so that the recipient can understand the meaning of the message.
This is a fundamental part of how the Internet works and why it can withstand disruptions. If some packages are missing, they can be sent again. If one path on the network is blocked, the packets are simply picked up by another router.
This technique is known as “packet switching”. It was invented in 1965, just three years after Licklider came up with the idea of ??the Galactic Network. However, this network was called ARPANET, and packet switching made it possible.
First message online was “LO”
LO? Why will this be the first message sent on the ARPANET? Well, the actually message should have read “INPUT”, but only the first two letters made it to the receiving computer.
These two historic letters were sent from the University of California to Stanford on October 29, 1969. Just months after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.
In 1969, the Internet only consisted of 4 computers
It is true that the ARPANET had only four computers connected to each other. Today, about half of the people on the planet have access to the Internet, and more than one device per person is connected to this global network. We’ve come a long way.
“Internet” is short for “Internetwork”
Okay, ARPANET was not the Internet yet. The word “Internet” is short for “Internet”. In other words, the Internet is just a network of networks.
The first handful of computers were quickly joined by other people who wanted to take part in the party. The problem was that nobody really knew how to handle traffic from so many potential computers at the same time. Packet switching was the right approach, but there are several ways to switch a packet.
It was the most difficult traffic jam in the world, how to solve it?
The Internet has its own “language”
To solve this problem, another intelligent scientist named Vinton Cerf came up with a protocol that he figuratively called the transmission control protocol. Basically, it is similar to the language in which internet devices speak to each other.
Cerf did not do this and connected TCP to IP or Internet Protocol. This is why you often hear the term “TCP / IP”.
Together, these two protocols dictate the rules that the Internet uses to send packets around the world. It is very smart and without it it would be impossible to manage the size of the Internet.
The web was invented in 1991
Did you know that you are now on the “Net”? The world at large first came into contact with the Internet via the World Wide Web. This is “WWW”, which used to be at the beginning of website addresses.
The Internet has created a permanent resource of information hosted on computers called “servers” that remain connected at all times. Suddenly, the Internet has gone from a way of sharing information among scientists and other people doing important work, into a system that everyone can use.
The Internet was invented by a physicist named Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the “hypertext” language on which the web is built to help scientists share their research. If you’d like to pay him a visit, go to his Twitter account
In fact, this is Sir Berners-Lee for all of us, for even the Queen loved the Web enough to be a knight of it.
The Web and the Internet are two different things
Many people confuse the world wide web where you visit websites with the internet itself. As you now know from what we saw above, the Internet was invented long before there were websites.
The Internet is actually one application running on the Internet. The Internet is all computers, networking equipment, and devices connected to the Internet in general. Along with protocols that tell them how to talk to each other.
There are many other things that also work over the Internet. In fact, most of the things that work on the Internet are not the Internet at all.
Google built on one simple solution
While the Internet is great, in the early days, finding the right content on the Internet was not easy. If you didn’t know the exact web address, you had to use a search engine, but the early search engines were not something like Google or Bing.
So what made Google so special? At that time, search engines generally considered the most relevant and important web pages containing many repetitions of the search query. This led to very dire results.
Google’s first great invention was PageRank. The founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, figured out that if you rank pages based on how many other pages are linked to, you will most often find the most important and relevant pages at the top of the list.
Google has turned PageRank into something much more complex today, but this one big idea has turned it into the huge Internet company it is today.
PageRank is named Larry Page
It is a complete coincidence that PageRank ranks web pages. It’s actually named after Google co-founder Larry Page
Even refrigerators and TVs can now use the Internet
Today, the Internet is used not only by people sitting at their computers. We now have something known as the Internet of Things (IoT).
It’s a collection of everyday devices like cars, kitchen appliances, and everything else you can think of with a built-in internet connection. They can communicate with each other and with the world, so your refrigerator can order more milk when it starts up. low.
It’s still early days for the Internet of Things, but your next device may turn out to be smarter than you expect.
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