Who invented Internet/www?

Tim Berners-Lee, 1991

With billions of people sitting at their computers and accessing the Internet every day, few would doubt its power and influence. But the Internet is just a network of computer networks. Its value comes from the way we use it, to send emails, for example, or to access the World Wide Web (www).

Benefits of Internet:

The web is a remarkable system, enabling anyone to quickly access a publicly available document or other information source wherever it might be, and for no cost other than the Internet connection, to read it, print it and store a copy on their own computer.

The web started small, initially involving just the scientists at one European research centre, the VERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva. One of those people was Tim Berners-Lee, from England. Many of the issues involved in sending documents through the Internet had already been solved through the workings of ARPANET in the USA the question now was how to find what you wanted to have sent to you.

In 1989 Berners-Lee proposed ‘ a global read write information space’ where each information source- a scientific paper for example-would have its own unique ID, a ‘uniform source identifier’; programs on your computer called ‘browsers’ or search engines’ could lead you to it. Within two years, the WWW was in use across the particle physics community; within another two years, other academics and then business were taking notice. The batter soon realized that enabling customers to find you on the web through their own webpage or website was more than useful; it was essential.

In 1994 CERN announced that anybody who could connect to the Internet could use the web, and it would be free. Not surprisingly, the following years wee a period of extraordinary growth in web use and web presence, the latter including the new phenomenon of ‘blogging’.

Berners-Lee’s honors include a knighthood in 2004, the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 2001 and being named by Time magazine in 1999 as one the 100 most influential people in 20^th century. Given the pervasive influence of the WWW, the last may understate the case.