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Web's 20th Anniversary
The
imaginary space of information
Twenty
years ago Tim Berners-Lee was working at CERN, a physics laboratory in Switzerland,
when he came upon idea that changed the way of our lives. He thought of joining
hypertext to the already existing Internet and getting all information needed
in one place. In a word, he created World Wide Web
By LJILJANA SAMARDŽIĆ
from Sombor, SERBIA
 Exploring
the Web is like exploring the World itself. Everything is offered, all kinds of
data - satelite views, pictures, videos, words... even the possibility to have
conversation with people who live in countries that we may only dream to visit.
No matter what, just type it in your web browser and you'll get at least one useful
result.
Today it seems obvious to be easily provided with needed information.
However, only twenty years ago, getting a book, a picture, an interview, timetables
etc. wasn't a piece of cake as it is today. But then, in 1989 Tim Berners-Lee
came up with the idea entitled "Information Management: a Proposal"
which considered of creating one universal center of data.
The celebration
On
March 13th the celebration was held in Globe, Geneva in order to gather the ones
included in invention and development of the Web and to celebrate the 20 years
of its existence. According to CERN,
"the event included short presentations from Web veterans, a keynote speech
from Tim Berners-Lee, a demonstration of the original browser on the NeXT computer,
and a series of presentations from people that Tim believes are doing exciting
things with the Web today".
New youth's website
On the
occasion of 20 years of Web, Berners-Lee's first collaborator, Robert Cailliau,
has launched a new website for young people called CERNland. Its main purpose
is to bring excitement in learning new things about physics. It consists of games
and short lessons, wallpapers, downloads, CERN movies and videos. Children aged
7 till 12 are expected to visit this site although it could be very interesting
for adults as well.
 "Society
needs more physicists across a range of industries," said CERN
Director, General Rolf Heuer, "and the way to attract young people
in to physics is to engage them early with the kind of discovery - science we
do here at CERN, addressing some of the most fundamental questions about our Universe."
The CERNland was created by experts, with the help of a group of students.
This site is available at http://www.cern.ch/cernland.
The
initial idea
People usually say that Berners-Lee has invented Internet,
but it already had existed in that period. He invented the Web. The Internet is
a network of networks, made of computers and cables while Web is the imaginary
space of information. As Berners-Lee explained, "on the Net, you find computers
- on the Web, you find documents, sounds, videos, ... information. On the Net,
the connections are cables between computers; on the Web, connections are hypertext
links."
At first, the idea behind Web was to simplify the exchange
of information among CERN physicists in their laboratory. They wanted to connect
hypertext with the Internet and personal computers. Hypertext would enable users
to browse easily between texts on web pages using links.
According to
CERN, "Berners-Lee created a browser-editor
with the goal of developing a tool to make the Web a creative space to share and
edit information and build a common hypertext. What should they call this new
browser: The Mine of Information? The Information Mesh? When they settled on a
name in May 1990, it was the WorldWideWeb."
Eventually, the Web became
universal and relatively easy for use. As Tim Berners-Lee explained, the universality
is the condition for open system as Web. But there is only one problem as a consequence
- it is non-controlled.
(Published: 10.04.2009.)
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