Internet / World Wide Web / Bluetooth / Wi-Fi

 Julia Perna

January 25th, 2023

 

Internet / World Wide Web / Bluetooth / Wi-Fi

 

Today’s world as we know it would not be able to function without the creation of the internet, but do any of us really know how it came to be? If it was to suddenly disappear one day businesses would not be able to function, schoolwork wouldn’t be able to be completed, social interactions would be much more limited. It is something we all utilize so much without realizing, whether it’s used happily or not, yet since it has always been there for most of us we have never even batted an eye towards the topic of its creation. The world is powered by the internet and everything that has come with it, such as the World Wide Web, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and now it is time to find out how it became so important.

 

            The textbook definition of the internet, sometimes referred to as “the net”, is a worldwide system of computer networks (a network of networks) in which any users on one system can, if they have permission, get information from any other system. It also sometimes allows for users on different systems to talk to each other either directly or in a group setting. The two scientists credited with the creation of the internet are Robert Kahn and Vincent Cerf, and they did so by creating what was just known as a “communications model” in the 1970s which standardized how data was transmitted in multiple networks. When a company known as ARPANET adopted this model on January 1, 1983 the true “modern” internet was born, leading many to say that no one person can be credited with the creation of the internet. When the internet was first created it was just used as a way for government researchers to share info, but today it is used for everything from businesses to schools and all categories that come in-between.

            

            The World Wide Web, otherwise just known as the Web, is an information system that enables documents and other web resources to be accessed all over the internet. Documents and media that is able to be downloaded are available to the system of networks through web servers and can be accessed by programs such as web browsers (hence why every website begins with www). Tim Berners-Lee (who is a British scientist) has been credited with creating the World Wide Web in 1989 while working for a company known as CERN. The Web was not made available for public use until 1991 and was originally just created to meet the demand for auto info sharing between scientists at different universities and institutes all over the world. As we now know that original idea did not stick and the World Wide Web is used for every need a person could possibly have, commonly being associated with the quote “the world is at your fingertips”.

 

            The Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same in the slightest, but they do work together almost at all times. As I mentioned before, the Internet is the network of connected computer systems while the World Wide Web is all of the pages you see while online and using the internet. The Internet is also how emails, messages, and files travel from 

one computer system to another, but the Web is a common way that those messages are sent. The World Wide Web organizes the information that is put out into the Internet, which in turn makes accessing information much easier for net users. The internet is an infrastructure, and the World Wide Web is the service that is put on top of that infrastructure.

 

            The first web page every created was launched on August 6, 1991 also by Tim Berners-Lee. It was being run on a NeXT computer at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, otherwise known as CERN. Its URL was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html and it is still an active webpage today, 32 years later. 

 

            Following the creation of the Internet and World Wide Web, a Dutch engineer known as Jaap Haartsen invented a concept which is now known as Bluetooth. The purpose of Bluetooth was to connect electronic gadgets to each other at a short range without the use of cables, using an extremely low amount of radio frequencies. The name Bluetooth as proposed in 1997 by Jim Kardach and comes from a 10th century king known as King Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson who is remembered for uniting Denmark and Norway in 958 and also his dead tooth, which was a blue/grey color, that got him the nickname. Kardach can be quoted saying “King Harald Bluetooth…was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link.” Bluetooth also got its iconic logo from King Harald by combing the Younger Futhark runes (Hagall) (ᚼ) and (Bjarkan) (ᛒ), otherwise known as his initials.

 

            Wi-Fi has a very long history prior to its true invention (which I will cover later on), but the person who is accredited with officially creating it is a man known as Vic Hayes. In 1997, Hayes was the chairman of a committee known as the IEEE who created the 802.11 standards. Before the public even heard of the term Wi-Fi, Hayes and the rest of his team developed and established the standards that would make if a feasible invention (eventually released later on in 1997). The original name of Wi-Fi was WaveLAN, and this was because it was the brand name for a family of wireless networks sold by NCR, AT&T, and multiple other companies. The name was originally switched to Wi-Fi because the company WECA chose it due to its pleasing sound and similarity to the term “Hi-Fi” (high fidelity).

 

            Back to the long history of Wi-Fi, the concept was actually first introduced in 1942 when a woman named Hedy Lamarr received a patent with a composer for a “frequency hopping, spread-spectrum communication system” that was designed to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam. Lamarr was an inventor and a Hollywood actress, and at one point she was given the title of “the most beautiful woman in Hollywood”. Although she herself did not fully invent Wi-Fi, she is the one who pioneered the technology that would one day be the base for what we know today as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Hedy does have a song written about her, and it is called “This is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr” by Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck. They wrote this song using her name as a metaphor for the struggles of fame in today’s modern world.

 

 

Sources

 

https://news.sky.com/story/johnny-depp-and-jeff-beck-release-song-about-difficulties-of-fame-in-tribute-to-hedy-lamarr-12631196

 

https://jwa.org/thisweek/aug/11/1942/actress-hedy-lamarr-patents-basis-for-wifi

 

https://www.bluetooth.com/about-us/bluetooth-origin/

 

http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

 

https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web

 

https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/Internet

 

https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/short-history-internet

 

https://www.britannica.com/story/who-invented-the-internet

 

https://fabrikbrands.com/bluetooth-history-and-the-bluetooth-logo/

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