Did you know that Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented both the World Wide Web (WWW) and HTML while working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland? What’s fascinating is that he didn’t set out to change the world—he was simply trying to solve a practical problem!
Back in the late 1980s, CERN was a hub for scientists from all over the world, but they struggled to share information efficiently. Researchers used different computers, operating systems, and document formats, making it difficult to access each other’s work. To fix this, Berners-Lee proposed a system of hypertext-linked documents that could be accessed via the internet. This idea eventually became the World Wide Web, and HTML (HyperText Markup Language) was created to structure web pages.
It’s incredible to think that something invented to streamline information sharing at one research facility ended up revolutionizing global communication!
What are your thoughts on how the web has evolved since its early days?
Scientists at CERN needed a better way to share information and documents with each other. At the time, computers at CERN were connected, but sharing information was complicated and inconsistent.
Here’s what Tim created:
• HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) - the language to create documents
• HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) - the protocol for transmitting data
• URLs (Universal Resource Locators) - the addressing system for documents
• The first web browser and web server software
What’s particularly remarkable is that he and CERN decided to make the World Wide Web available for anyone to use for free, without royalties. On April 30, 1993, CERN released the WWW technology into the public domain. This decision was crucial in allowing the web to grow into what it is today.
Tim Berners-Lee is still active in web development and advocacy. He founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which develops web standards, and he’s been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (hence the “Sir”). He’s also been a strong advocate for net neutrality and web privacy.
An interesting quote from him about his invention: “The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past.”
His other recent project, SOLID, hasn’t really gotten the same kind of traction and may never be viable at scale but I remember thinking when I first encountered it that it was a really interesting solution to handling data privacy online. Especially in the age of big tech and data brokers.
And he did it on a Next computer made by Jobs after getting fired from Apple. The Next OS became MacOS today. It’s amazing how many things Jobs touched indirectly.
Gray said:
And he did it on a Next computer made by Jobs after getting fired from Apple. The Next OS became MacOS today. It’s amazing how many things Jobs touched indirectly.
There needs to be more movies about things like this. Super big events in history, and I find them so interesting.
What a gift this was to humanity. Imagine if they had tried to commercialize these concepts. We would probably still be in the www vs hypercard world. Or we might have a proper web3 style protocol by now.
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