Evolution of the Internet
In the early 60s, the concept of the internet was credited to Leonard Kleinrock after publishing a paper called “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets”.
The internet is a simple thing and you can guess what the idea is without the technical portion just from the title. The internet was going to take one to one communication and transform it into many different “hubs” where many people and organizations could create a hub or access it.
Today, the concept has been implemented and thrives today by allowing many people to write in community forums, talk in large groups and play games with anyone across the globe. This has been key to changing and creating the largest diversity of cultural groups in the greatest number. The new culture isn’t exactly new but a fusion of different cultures communicating in one language.
One example being anime culture which is primarily Japanese, however due to the popularity with so many people the types of shows being broadcast are now introducing better quality foreign characters. An example of this is Carole and Tuesday which is basically a version of any singing competition like The Voice or American Idol, but even though the show is made by Japanese illustrators, writers and producers, the show showcases people of a variety of cultural backgrounds and languages. Shows like this are created due to the internet being taken from a concept and given further life as a tool for collaboration even if it is unintentional. When people have the abilty to communicate their thoughts to one another both constructive and destructive concepts have a mechanism to be generated.
This goes a step further when an event takes place to invite enthusiasts from all over the globe as the 2022 World Cup did. This event truly expressed what it meant to mix different cultures and peoples together over a simple common interest: football. Outside of the sport there were many interviews taking place for all countries with different people. Even though communication may have been difficult at times, you could see the patience and happiness people had by sharing what they felt from online to real time.
However, where did the concept of the internet really start from? As mentioned before, the internet is basically a net with a bunch of “hubs” or “intersections” or “nodes” are formed for servers to be placed and for people to access. However, is that such a new concept? Can anyone say it is a unique idea?
I’ll fast forward to today for example where businesses are looking in the space sector to launch satellites into the lower portion of the atmosphere to generate a communication network of satellites. Those satellites will form a constellation and will be communicating with one another: over a thousand satellites in a communication net…sound familiar? It is the same concept as the internet. The purpose is slightly different in this case; the satellites would be increasing internet coverage to include dead zones over oceans and in mountains for example. But look, its just another communication net if you think about it.
So, someone in the 60s thought about a communication net and some people today are also thinking about a network of satellites. In case it wasn’t obvious, the connecting factor is the net. A physical net like a fishing net connects strings together at a bunch of points in an organized grid, but that’s not quite what the internet is or what those people are trying to do, is it? The communication links are more like a spider web in my opinion. A spider web is never quite the same and is different based on location and environment. The internet and the satellites do a similar thing just with communication lines rather than physical material. The communication links are dependent on the interests of people at their given time and place. Think of it like the social environment rather than the climatic environment.
Not really so difficult to conceptualize the internet or the satellite constellations once you think of something more simple and naturally occurring. By relating the technological world to the natural one, you can see the simplicity of the idea… the hard part of course is executing it.
So? Which is more difficult then? To create the internet or to teach a spider how to spin it’s web?