The creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, changed the world, but he himself remained the same. Educational and research work "British inventions that changed the world" (in the discipline "English")

25 years ago, on August 23, 1991, British scientist Timothy Berners-Lee officially launched the world's first website. During this time, the world has changed dramatically.

However, what the Internet is now no longer matches Berners-Lee's original vision. Whether this is good or bad is debatable. What does the creator of the WWW think about this? What path did Berners-Lee himself go through?

Timothy John Berners-Lee is from the UK. He was born on June 8, 1955 in London. His parents, Conway Berners-Lee and Mary Lee Woods, were mathematicians. They were also associated with IT: they conducted research in the field of creating one of the first computers - the Manchester Mark I.

In addition, the prerequisites for the invention of the WWW was the idea of ​​the American scientist Vannevar Bush, who came up with the concept of hypertext.

In a broader sense, hypertext is a literary work, dictionary or encyclopedia, which contains configurations (patterns), the use of which allows you to correlate parts of the text that are not connected by a linear sequence, considering them as the embodiment of semantic unity.

In computer terminology, hypertext is text formed using a markup language with the expectation of using hyperlinks.

A few years after the birth of Tim Berners-Lee, Ted Nelson proposed a "documentary universe" where all the texts ever written by mankind would be linked together by what we would today call "cross-references".

Childhood and youth

At the age of 12, Tim entered the private school Emanuel in the town of Wandsworth. There the boy began to show interest in the exact sciences. After leaving school, he went to college at Oxford. Once he was deprived of access to educational computers for a serious offense - a hacker attack (according to another version, he was caught playing computer games at the computer of the nuclear physics laboratory). In those days, computers were big and computer time was expensive.

This circumstance gave Tim the idea that he could assemble the computer himself. After some time, he got a homemade computer based on the M6800 processor, with an ordinary TV instead of a monitor and a broken calculator instead of a keyboard.

Career

Berners-Lee graduated from Oxford in 1976 with a degree in physics, after which he began his career at Plessey Telecommunications Ltd. in the county of Dorset. The scope of his activity at that time was distributed transactions. After a couple of years, he moved to another company - DG Nash Ltd, where he developed software for printers.

The next place of work played a decisive role in the fate of Tim, and indeed of all mankind. The European Laboratory for Nuclear Research (CERN, CERN) was located in Geneva (Switzerland). There, Berners-Lee developed the Enquire program (the literal translation from English sounds like “interrogator”, “reference” or “notebook”), which used the method of random associations. The principle of its work, in many ways, was the basis for the creation of the World Wide Web.

Tim then worked as a systems architect for three years. And as part of his scientific work at CERN, he developed a number of distributed systems for collecting data.

From 1981 to 1984, Tim Berners-Lee worked for Image Computer Systems Ltd.

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In 1984 he returned to CERN on a fellowship there. During this time, he worked on the FASTBUS system and developed his own RPC (Remote Procedure Call) system. In addition, the Enquire program has undergone a redesign.

At the new stage of development, it had to not only support arbitrary hypertext links, making it easier to search in the database, but also become a multi-user and cross-platform system.

The main task of the new program was to publish hypertext documents that would be interconnected by hyperlinks. This made it possible to significantly facilitate the search for information, its systematization and storage. Initially, the project was supposed to be implemented in the CERN internal network for local research needs, as a modern alternative to the library and other data repositories. At the same time, data download and access to them were possible from any computer connected to the WWW.

Despite the skepticism of senior colleagues, in 1989 the project, called the World Wide Web, was approved and implemented. Tim was greatly assisted in this work by Robert Cailliau.

In the fall of 1990, CERN staff received the first "web server" and "web browser" written by Mr. Berners-Lee himself in the NeXTStep environment. In the summer of 1991, the WWW project, which conquered the scientific world of Europe, crossed the ocean and merged into the American Internet.

Work on the project lasted from 1991 to 1993: the developers collected user reviews and based on them they finalized the World Wide Web. In particular, the first versions of the URL protocols (as a special case of the URI identifier), HTTP and HTML were already proposed then. The first web browser based on World Wide Web hypertext and a WYSIWYG editor were also introduced.

One of the key properties of the WWW has always been the decentralization of nodes. Like the progenitors of the Internet (the ARPANET and NSFNet networks), it ensured the reliability of functioning, the absence of geographical boundaries and political barriers.

Since the web began its rapid development in 1991, it has gradually changed, losing its main features. Root DNS servers were concentrated in the United States, which made the network more vulnerable.

Looking ahead, here's a quote from Tim about where it all led:

The monopoly on Internet services is formed in the standard way: first, people are offered a convenient way to do something on the Web for free. Search on the Internet and on a map, on a computer and smartphone, communicate in mail, chat and social networks, watch videos and post your own, plan business and vacations, work with documents directly from the browser ... If there are not enough analogues of popular services, then they they simply buy from other companies, preventing the latter from growing into a large holding and competing.

At some point, everything that has become familiar to many ends up on the servers of the only company that knows too much about each person and their interactions. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook... As long as you think you're using their products, they're using your data, dividing the internet among themselves, and starting to dictate increasingly harsh terms. Sign in to Google to leave a comment on YouTube. Allow location tracking, provide your profile information and friends list...

Page of the world's first website

Berners-Lee created the world's first website at info.cern.ch/, the site is now archived. This site went online on August 6, 1991. Its content was informative and supporting information. The site described what the World Wide Web was, how to set up a web server, how to get a browser, and so on. This site was also the world's first Internet directory because Tim Berners-Lee later hosted and maintained a list of links to other sites there.

Further development of the Web

Since 1994, Berners-Lee has held the 3Com Founders Chair at the MIT Informatics Laboratory (now the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, with the Massachusetts Institute of Massachusetts), where he serves as principal investigator.

In 1994, he founded the MIT World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Laboratory, which to this day develops and implements standards for the Internet. In particular, the Consortium is working to ensure that the World Wide Web develops in a stable and continuous manner - in line with the latest user requirements and the level of technological progress. The W3C aims to unlock the full potential of the World Wide Web by combining the stability of standards with their rapid evolution.

In 1999, Berners-Lee published a book called Weaving the Web: The Outcomes and Future of the World Wide Web. It describes in detail the process of working on a key project in the life of the author. He also wrote about the prospects for the development of the Internet and Internet technologies and outlines a number of important principles:

1. The ability to edit information on the Web is as important as the ability to surf. In this sense, Berners-Lee was very reliant on the concept of WYSIWYG.

2. Computers can be used for "background processes" to help people work together.

3. Every aspect of the Internet should work like a web, not like a hierarchy. In this sense, an unpleasant exception is the Domain Name System (DNS), administered by the ICANN organization.

4. IT specialists bear not only technical responsibility, but also moral one.

In 2004, Berners-Lee became a professor at the University of Southampton, where he worked on the Semantic Web Project. It is a new version of the World Wide Web, where all data is suitable for processing using special programs. This is a kind of “add-on”, assuming that each resource will have not only plain text “for people”, but also specially encoded content that is understandable to a computer.

The Semantic Web provides access to clearly structured information for any application, regardless of platform and regardless of programming languages. Programs will be able to find the necessary resources themselves, classify data, identify logical relationships, draw conclusions, and even make decisions based on these conclusions. According to Berners-Lee, if widely adopted and implemented properly, the Semantic Web could revolutionize the Internet.

In 2005, his second book, Traversing the Semantic Web: Unlocking the Full Potential of the World Wide Web, was published.

Tim Berners-Lee is currently a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Foreign Fellow of the US National Academy of Sciences and many others. His work has received many awards, including the Order of Merit, a place in the list of "100 Greatest Minds of the Century" according to Time Magazine (1999), the Quadriga Award in the "Knowledge Network" nomination (2005), the M.S. Gorbachev Prize in the nomination "Perestroika" - "The Man Who Changed the World" (2011) and others.
On March 12, 2014, the web turned 25 years old. On this occasion, the creator of WWW wrote in his blog:

In 1993, I managed to convince CERN to announce WWW as a technology that would be available to everyone and always, without any licensing fees.

This decision allowed tens of thousands of people to start building the web together. Today, about 40% of the world's population use it. The Web has already contributed trillions of dollars to the global economy, transformed education and medicine, and served to spread democracy around the world. And this is just the beginning.

Today is a holiday for us. But this is also an occasion to think, discuss and start acting. It is high time to make key decisions about Internet governance and development, and it is vital that we all take part in discussions about the future of the World Wide Web. How can we be sure that the remaining 60% of humanity will quickly get access to the Internet? How can we be sure that the web will support all languages ​​and cultures, and not just a few of the most common ones?

How can we agree on open standards for the coming Internet of Things? Will we allow someone else to package up and limit our communication online, or will we defend the magic of the open web and the power to speak, discover and create that it gives? How can we build a system of checks and balances that guarantees public accountability for those groups that can spy on the network? Such questions come to my mind. And you?

The influence of Berners-Lee on the IT industry, and indeed on the world as a whole, is difficult to overestimate. However, he did not seek to receive super profits from his projects and inventions. He didn't become another Gates, Zuckerberg or Jobs. He remained himself.

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On the one hand, the phrase "British scientists have proven ..." has caused many anecdotes and involuntarily causes a smile, but on the other hand, it was British scientists who made the most important discoveries in many areas. It was in the British Empire that scientific and technological progress was born, which continues to this day.
The scientific and technological revolution began in the British Empire at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, but its “preparation” started much earlier.
In 1775, a significant event for the whole world took place in Great Britain - James Watt developed and patented a steam engine, the initial application of which was pumping water from mines, but later this device began to be used in many industries. In 1825, there were already 15,000 steam engines in the empire. Subsequently, on the basis of this engine, an internal combustion engine was invented, therefore, for all the engines currently in use, it is worth thanking, first of all, Watt.
Such an invention as a steam locomotive also comes from Great Britain, and this transport was discovered by George Stephenson, who in 1823 already led the construction of a steam locomotive plant. Of course, at present this transport is not used, but without it there would be no trains in their modern sense. Stephenson also designed the world's first railway, so this discovery was of great importance for mankind.
However, British scientists made the greatest contribution precisely to the development of science, to the interpretation of its foundations and the reformation of generally accepted canons.
Everyone knows the greatest physicist Isaac Newton, who told mankind about the law of gravity, and the apple that fell on his head has already become almost his own name. In addition, Newton developed the laws of conservation of energy, color theory, differential and integral calculus, and other important theories that mankind uses to this day. For his services to the empire, Newton was awarded the knighthood "Sir".
James Joule succeeded in the study of thermodynamics, and also formed its first law. Also, working with Thomas Kelvin, he discovered the relationship between current and heat generated.
The theory of the electromagnetic field was developed by another famous Briton, Michael Faraday, who was interested in research in the field of electromagnetism and achieved considerable success in this industry.
It is impossible not to mention the works of Charles Darwin, who proposed his famous theory of evolution, which was only partially confirmed over time. For example, the scientist's research on natural selection is really beyond doubt, but the assumption of the origin of man from a monkey is a British fantasy. All intermediate species presented subsequently turned out to be the simultaneous discovery of human and monkey skeletons in one place. The scientists who made such “discoveries” simply wanted to become famous.
Ernest Rutherford also lived and worked in Britain, who made a huge contribution to the development of nuclear physics. The explorer was born in New Zealand, but he arrived in Foggy Albion at the age of 24, and all his life glorified the British Empire with his discoveries. He was the first to present the structure of the atom, discovered its splitting, isolated the proton and some isotopes, and also told the world about alpha and beta radiation.
Some Britons made discoveries that later saved millions of lives. Among them, first of all, is Alexander Fleming, who accidentally discovered penicillin, which allowed mankind to overcome many diseases. In his laboratory, the scientist did not keep cleanliness, and one day when he arrived, he noticed mold fungi on a test tube, around which staphylococcus bacteria died. Further, Fleming had already conducted a series of studies, and isolated penicillin.
In the modern world, British scientists have also succeeded. Representatives of the Foggy Albion, namely, Tim Bertens-Lee, gave the world the Internet, without which at present hardly anyone can do without. Protocols URL, HTTP, HTML - all this is the merit of an outstanding Briton.
At present, we know for certain about geography - where is which country, which islands, etc., but it was the British who made a great contribution to the discovery of the world. Their discoveries are currently considered by some to be not particularly important, however, they have given mankind a lot. Among the great British navigators, it is worth highlighting especially Henry Hudson, William Buffett, John Davis and, of course, the great navigator with a tragic fate, James Cook.
Britain plays a very important role in modern science, and scientists representing Foggy Albion have made and continue to make important discoveries to the world. Despite the fact that their discoveries are often ironic, it is worth recognizing that it is the Royal Scientific Society that occupies a leading position in the world. Also, British researchers claim that they will soon be able to develop a cure for cancer.

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The phrase "British scientists" already causes a smile. The most ridiculous and stupid discoveries are attributed to them. TECHNO bigmir)net decided to restore justice and made the TOP 10 coolest discoveries of scientists from the UK

Law of gravity

900game.net

Surely even before Isaac Newton, people wondered why all objects fall to the ground. Kepler and Descartes even tried to formulate their own laws. Actually, Newton in the book Mathematical principles of natural philosophy in 1687 he referred to Kepler's empirical laws. But Newton's theory, unlike the hypotheses of its predecessors, had a number of significant differences. The mathematician published not just the proposed formula for the law of universal gravitation, but actually proposed a complete mathematical model.

Electrodynamics

wikipedia.org

The British physicist and mathematician James Maxwell was the first to lay out the foundations of modern classical electrodynamics. He introduced the concepts of displacement current and electromagnetic field into physics. Actually, thanks to him, we know something about alternating current, electric charge, electric and magnetic fields. Thanks to these discoveries, we use all electronics and electrical engineering.

Locomotive

n-tv.de

Although this is already an outdated invention, it is thanks to steam locomotives and the railway that the world has become the way it is now. True, instead of steam locomotives now there are electric locomotives and diesel trains. And we have George Stephenson to thank for the invention of the first steam locomotive. Also, this Briton created the first railway.

Evolution

anisn.it

A revolutionary discovery made by naturalist Charles Darwin completely changed our world. The theory of natural selection dealt a powerful blow to religion, starting an era of scientific atheism. Darwin himself considered religion to be only a tribal survival strategy. Moreover, having formulated his theory, Darwin still believed in God. His faith only weakened over time. Darwin finally became an atheist only after the death of his daughter Annie in 1851.

Antibiotics

smithsonianmag.com

Bacteriologist Alexander Fleming was initially involved in the treatment of syphilis. He came up with a simple (at that time) diagnosis of syphilis by a drop of blood from a finger. Prior to this, blood for analysis was taken from a vein.

Fleming made his main discovery - penicillin - absolutely by accident. His laboratory was so dirty that when he left for his family and returned a month later, he found mold fungi on one of the plates with staphylococci. And all the colonies of staphylococci present on the plate were destroyed. Thus, Fleming isolated a substance that helped save many people from scarlet fever, pneumonia, meningitis and diphtheria.

Nuclear physics

guardian.co.uk

Ernest Rutherford is called the father of nuclear physics. He formulated the planetary model of the atom, discovered alpha and beta radiation, the short-lived radon isotope, and many isotopes. It was also he who explained the radioactivity of thorium on the basis of the properties of radon, discovered and explained the radioactive transformation of chemical elements, created the theory of radioactive decay, split the nitrogen atom, discovered the proton. He proved that the alpha particle is the nucleus of helium.

True, to call Rutherford a British is not entirely correct. He was born in New Zealand. His grandfather immigrated there from Scotland. At 24, Ernest Rutherford moved to the UK, where he studied at Cambridge.

Cloning

20minutes.es

Although cloning attempts, even successful ones, have been made before, it was only in 1996 that the whole world was shocked by the appearance of Dolly the sheep. Moreover, in her name there is a share of purely British humor. The name Dolly (English Dolly - Dolly) appeared at the suggestion of the scientist Keith Campbell. The sheep itself is cloned from an udder cage. American singer Dolly Parton loved to focus on her large bust. The sheep was named after her.

It was Keith Campbell who conducted the cloning experiment under the direction of Ian Wilmuth at the Roslyn Institute. Unfortunately, in October of this year, Campbell, but until recently, was an employee of the University of Nottingham, where he continued embryonic research.

Great Britain has given the world many influential scientists, mathematicians and inventors. And with such people come great ideas, theories and inventions, some of which have changed the world.

USA

The United States is a country that occupies almost half of North America. The USA has been and remains one of the most influential countries in the world, especially in the spheres of industry, culture and military power. The United States of America was formed in 1776 by the union of thirteen British colonies that declared their independence. The War of Independence continued until 1783 and ended in victory for the colonists.

Almost every modern sport

The most popular sports in the world today have their origins in the UK, at least in terms of standardized rules and competition. The most famous sports are football, cricket, rugby and tennis. Of course, the British were not the first to come up with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bdriving the ball around the field, but it was they who built the structure and system of rules for most sports as we know them now.

Newton's laws

Isaac Newton British physicist and mathematician. He was born in 1642. Newton was the first to discover 3 laws of motion. He was also the first to document the mechanics of universal gravitation. Many consider Isaac Newton one of the most important scientists in human history.

Programmable computer

The first computer was invented by the British mathematician and scientist Charles Babbage in 1820. But although he is called the inventor, he never saw the machine itself built to the end. The project was closed due to lack of funds. The device was built 150 years later in 1989.

The World Wide Web

It should not be confused with the Internet. The World Wide Web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee, is a distributed system that provides access to interconnected documents located on different computers connected to the Internet. The World Wide Web is made up of millions of web servers. Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the idea of ​​VP in March 1989, later refined with Robert Cayo. Tim, although he understood the potential personal benefit from his invention, did not demand money for the work.

A television

The world's first publicly demonstrated television was invented by British inventor John Logie Baird. Although mechanical television was later superseded by the developments of Vladimir Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth in the field of electronic television, Baird's first televisions were an important step in the development of television.

Locomotive

The first who managed to make a steam cart rolling on rails was the talented English engineer Richard Trevithick, who by the end of the 18th century was famous for creating light but powerful steam boilers. In one of the earliest public demonstrations, the locomotive successfully carried 10 tons of iron, 5 wagons and 70 men over a distance of 15 km in 4 hours and 5 minutes. Trevithick continued to work on steam locomotives until his death in April 1833.

Evolution theory

Charles Darwin, British naturalist, was born in 1809. He was the first to propose the theories of evolution, natural selection, and common ancestry that are popular today. After 5 years of traveling the world, Darwin returned to the UK, becoming a celebrity in scientific circles. Darwin has received numerous awards from the scientific societies of Great Britain and other European countries. Darwin died at Downe, Kent, on April 19, 1882.

Telephone

The telephone was invented by what many believe to be the British scientist Alexander Bell and patented in 1876. field of communications, which is the highest award of the organization.

English language

English, according to many sources, is the second most spoken language in the world, after Chinese. English is almost always used as a communication language at international summits and global events. It is also the most advanced language, with speakers found in Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada and, of course, the UK. The information space in English, including periodicals and non-periodicals, television, cinema, radio, library collections, the English sector of the Internet and other sources, is currently unprecedented in volume and content. All this undoubtedly makes the English language the most important British invention.

Great Britain has given us many scientists and inventors, without whom scientific progress would not be possible today. In the world of modern technology, each of us uses a variety of techniques, without knowing anything about their inventors. New discoveries and achievements began to be taken for granted, and not a unique phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is not known whether we could now use electricity, a computer and the World Wide Web, if not for scientists, among whom English inventors occupy an honorable place. Among them are Isaac Newton and Alexander Bell, Charles Babbage and others.

Most outstanding English inventors

Isaac newton

The great English scientist Isaac Newton is best known to the world as an outstanding physicist and mathematician. Many of us associate the name of this brilliant Briton, first of all, with the law of universal gravitation. However, Newton's scientific works are widely used not only in the field of physics, but also in astronomy. For example, thanks to the mirror telescope he invented, many discoveries were made. It was Newton who wrote down all the basic laws of classical mechanics that are used by modern scientists. In addition, the inventor spent a lot of time on his theological writings, where he explained the meaning of biblical prophecy.

Alexander Bell

We all owe the opportunity to call each other to the other side of the world to the great inventor from Scotland, Alexander Bell. At the end of the 19th century, a scientist created a receiver capable of converting electricity into sound in an amazing way. It is generally accepted that such a device became the first prototype of the telephone. There is controversy over Bell's invention, and it is possible that the telephone was created before him. But he was definitely the first of those who patented his discovery. Bell also worked on the development of new methods for teaching people who do not have the ability to hear. In addition, Alexander Bell became one of the founders of the world famous National Geographic magazine.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage was the same inventor who started building the world's first computer. Unfortunately, 19th century computing machines did not have the precision and power to complete the digital computer project started by Mr. Charles. The computer scheme that Babbage invented was so close to reality that it can rightly be called the progenitor of modern laptops.

inventions British , changed world

In addition to all of the above, English inventors gave the world many more interesting and useful discoveries. For example, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, a system that allows access to related documents on different computers if they are connected to the Internet. And thanks to Richard Trevithick, we all ride trains - he invented and built the first steam locomotive.