The Internet: The Invention Of The Internet

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Recommended: Impact on society OF THE INTERNET

Clay Humphrey
Ms. Hamilton
English 11 AP Prep
23 May 2014
The Invention of the Internet
The internet is by far the most advanced movement in technology the world has ever seen. The capability of moving information – be it via text, audio, video, or some combination thereof – has been our greatest asset over the past 45 years. Since the establishment of the first cross-computer link, things have gone nowhere but up.
In the late 1950’s, the Soviet Union launched the first manmade satellite into orbit. Sputnik, as it was known, did not really do anything. It was a small, ball-shaped hunk of metal that floated without direction through space. Regardless, the US was frightened by this launch. The Soviets had been focusing their efforts and working hard, and many Americans were afraid this would win them the Cold War. The US reacted quickly, forming two new government agencies. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which is quite well known, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), which is less heard of ("The Invention of the Internet.").
Shortly after the Sputnik Launch, a man named J.C.R Licklider envisioned what he called a “Galactic Network”. He imagined global connectivity of computers through which all people could quickly and easily access data from any other computer in the world – a shockingly accurate depiction of the internet of today (Leiner). He was concerned that the US’s current communication standard of the telephone was too vulnerable, and could easily be wiped by a missile or two. However, Licklider was not the first to connect computers in a network. Shortly after hearing about the possibility of computer connectivity, Lawrence G. Roberts connected two computers on opposite sides of th...

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...ut current. Internet communities keep things up to date.
A misconception that many have, though, is that the Internet is the World Wide Web. These are different things. The web is what most people think of as the internet – social media, video sharing, and forums. The internet is the combined network of networks of networks in the World. The web is home to all websites, whereas the internet is home to all networks. Regardless of people’s misunderstanding of what the internet is, the World Wide Web would not have been possible without it.
The internet has allowed for the expansion of all things, informative or otherwise. And it has gotten to where it is today over the span of only fifty-or-so years. There is nowhere to go but up, and there is no time like now to go there. The internet will still be just as remarkable in the next fifty years. Probably even more so.

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