Page 9 - FILE GDP

1.7 Definition of terms / Operations

1.7.1 Website

Intellectual breakthroughs can be subtle, growing by the accretion of insight and
experiment. Like the lightbulb and the telephone, the Internet started out in the

laboratory. But unlike the drama accompanying the first filament flicker, or Bell calling

to Watson, the Net's beginnings went largely unnoticed by the public. For all its
technological brilliance, the Internet of today is far removed from the concepts that

propelled initial research. And the Internet's story -- which has become the World Wide
Web's story - has not been so much one of planned development as of individual genius,

at least until recently

You need to understand that story because while the Net of today is out pacing its original
1960s - era definition, it has yet to catch up with the vision of several people who came

into the process early and realized that it could change the world. In a similar way, the
breakthroughs that will change tomorrow's Web are likely visible only to the few. If there

is one thing the Internet has taught us, it is that technology often extends its own
definition. Its reach is elastic and its implications can be profound.

The visionaries who developed the key network concepts put them together out of

brainstorming and intuition. Visionaries like Vannevar Bush, a mathematician who
directed the Office of Research and Development for the U.S. 27 government during

World War II. Bush's ground breaking article " As We May Think” appeared in The
Atlantic Monthly in 1945, not long before the stunning news of the atomic blasts at

Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You can access this document, which originally appeared in

The Atlantic Monthly in 1945, at a website: http://www.isg.sfu.ca/duchier/misc/vbush

Adaptation from Rajesh Lal, (2013)

ISBN 978-1-59253-803-4, Rockport Publishers.

8