Who Created The Internet? – No phenomenon beats the internet when it comes to the growth in influence on the human race. In the United States of America alone, there are more than seven thousand internet service providers (ISPs). Each one of them provides many different offers – just look at the number of Xfinity bundles you can subscribe to online! On a global scale, approximately five billion people use the internet. If you divide that figure by the total population of the world, you will be able to find out that two out of three citizens of the world use the increasingly influential global network called the internet.
Furthermore, a market research business in Newton, Massachusetts, Strategy Analytics cameup with a report saying that, by this century’s first quarter ends, there will be roundabout thirty-five billion devices connected to the network. If you are having difficulty picturing that big a figure, know that it is more than a hundred times the number of people residing in our country.
Without a doubt, with an increase in influence comes an increase in questioning. The same is happening with the internet as many people indulge in discussions about it. While many wonder about the negative consequences the internet will have on children, others like to discuss which internet service provider offers the fastest internet. Some even discuss who created the internet. If you are one of the latter, be grateful that you landed here. It is not us being arrogant about our piece; it’s us having the insight that we will be discussing the entities that contributed to the creation of the internet in this piece.
ARPANET
Whenever we are discussing what created a certain phenomenon, we must take into consideration if that phenomenon succeeded another phenomenon. In the case of the internet, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) is widely considered the forerunner. You might have guessed from the name but the Advanced Research Projects Agency created it. Any guesses on what that was? It was not any technological department governed by the entire world; rather it was an arm of the military of a single country – the United States of America.
You might be wondering why the military wanted to build the ARPANET. Well, they were looking for a place to store their data that could not be bombarded by the Soviets;the best solution was to have the data stored over a network that spanned several territories.
Note that even though the ARPANET was created by the Department of Defense, its purpose was never restricted to the military. Many key developers of the network like Joseph Licklider and Robert Taylor wanted global communities to form. Don’t believe us? Read the prime work of the aforementioned scientists: The Computer as a Communication Device.
Internet Protocol
Although it would be wrong to credit the creation of the internet to one single entity, if we had to pick one individual, it would be Vinton Cerf. This is because he invented the Internet Protocol (IP), which allowed for computers around the globe to communicate with one another in a virtual space. The IP was launched on 1st January 1983.
That date is now considered the birth date of the internet. Thus, whenever you are celebrating the New Year, remember to celebrate the birthday of the phenomenon that lets you share pictures of your New Year celebrations with the rest of the world.
World Wide Web
Not everything related to the internet can be related to the Department of Defense. A British, by the name of Sir Tim Berners Lee, created the most widely used application of the internet – the World Wide Web. By laying the foundations for HTML linking, Sir Tim allowed web pages to connect. All the connections made between the web pages then gave birth to a web of shared knowledge called the World Wide Web.
Search Engines
Although when we think of the term “search engine” the first entity that comes to mind is Google, it is important to note that there were search engines before Google as well. A software developer at a technology company called Nexor invented the first search engine. The name of the developer is MartijnKoster and the name of the search engine he founded is Aliweb. All this happened in the early 1990s.
Nonetheless, we have to give credit where it is due. The truth is Google completely changed what we thought of as search engines when it founded its engine in 1998. Today, Google has indexed well over 50 billion web pages.
Conclusion
As detailed above, many entities contributed to what is known as the internet of today. If we were to give a verdict stating the most significant creator, we fear that would serve an injustice towards the other great scientists who worked on molding the internet into a better version of itself.
