The "invention" of the internet is - as Jeremy says - a fabrication. We also have a Washington Post article pronouncing V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai the "inventor" of email: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/va-shivaayyadurai-inve... One of the most annoying errors that gets kicked about is the "fact" that the internet was constructed to withstand the impact of atomic war. Supposedly this led to the use of a packet switching protocol. Paul Baran of the RAND Corporation did in fact sort of "invent" the concept, but so did Donald Davies in the UK. Both published extensively on the subject. Larry Roberts has more detaills here: http://www.packet.cc/files/ev-packet-sw.html However, Len Kleinrock's work as a graduate student at MIT preceded both and he did not have atomic war in mind. The development of the internet was based on Kleinrock's work with packet switching: http://www.packet.cc/internet.html Just sayin'
Thanks to all for an interesting and thoughtful thread to read today...
Steve
Ditto here. Best, Charlie -- Charlie Breindahl External Lecturer University of Copenhagen + Copenhagen Business School Co-editor, Artifact, http://www.informaworld.com/artifact Communication Manager, Danish Centre for Design Research, http://www.dcdr.dk/ "For the modern Don Quixote, the windmills have been preprogrammed to turn into knights" - Janet H. Murray