-
So, in that video, the University of
Michigan, the unexpected underdog in the
-
competition for the National Science
Foundation wins. And they win using, sort
-
of an old fashion technique. Basically,
many might say that was cheating, right?
-
They didn't play exactly by the rules.
This is becoming an increasingly common
-
technique sometimes when, when an
institution wants to win a grant. They'll,
-
they'll you know, they'll, they'll bring
so much more money to bear on but it's
-
kind of an obvious, obvious thing that
they can, that they're going to win the
-
grant. So the, but, so there is actually a
couple of schools that thought that was
-
kind of unfair. But the other thing to
think about in this is the lobbyists
-
carefully crafted the15 million dollars. I
would claim they carefully crafted the
-
fifteen million dollars so this network
would fail because they knew how much, if
-
you leased the lines from AT&T, it
would, it would cost so much that the only
-
thing you could afford was 56 kilobit
lines for the network that was being
-
proposed. Now, when you think of 56
kilobits, right? So here, take your, take
-
your phone, right? You got your 3G and
your 4G, and the thing that came before
-
all those was EDGE. You remember EDGE?
Now, of course, if you go to the wrong
-
place, you end up in a basement or
something, you go EDGE on your, on your
-
phone. Edge, the thing that's your phone's
doing when it's doing real bad connection.
-
Edge is 128 kilobits, which is twice what
the national backbone for all the
-
scientists talking to all the computers in
the country. 56 kilobits was the national
-
backbone that the lobbyists carefully
authorized funds for. And there will be
-
only one conclusion at this point and that
was that they wanted it to fail. And, as
-
is said in the movie Jurassic Park, nature
finds a way. And, and if, if you think
-
about it the story that Doug van Holland
just told is like a perfect storm. Mci
-
just started existing. You know, they just
started existing and so they wanted to do
-
something cool , and so they were willing
to take a risk. Doug had, just come from
-
Carnegie Mellon University, where he had
worked with IBM before. So, what's the
-
likelihood that, here's a school that has
a long network history, but didn't work on
-
the Arpanet. Knows IBM intimately. Just
it's just pretty amazing, you know, that,
-
that this all happened. And so, but it
did. Nature found a way just like in
-
Jurassic Park and all the plans and all
the attempts to, to, to box, to put and to
-
draw a fine line around this failed. And
so, the NSF net as Dough said, just took
-
off, alright. And the, going back to what
Larry said, the, the key was is that each
-
school had to be, you know, first on it or
you're going lose your physicist, right,
-
it became a badge of honor. And so,
schools basically panicked and they found
-
money somewhere to run fiber, to run
networks to people's offices. This is a
-
whole bunch of infrastructure that, that
needed to be installed. And I wasn't at
-
University of Michigan at the time, I was
at Michigan State University at the time,
-
just up the road. And I saw the internet
for the first time in the, in the building
-
that's here in this upper left hand corner
of the, of the slide. And that is the what
-
we used to call SI North, the school that
I'm part of. It's really a rather
-
nondescript building but they used to have
monitors and watching all these things.
-
And so, the traffic grew, the performance
grew there's all kinds of things that,
-
that had to be solved through this thing.
It started in 1988 and was supposed to go
-
through 1993, for five years and it ended
up going through 1995. Now, the key thing
-
is if you think about that time frame, you
know, by early 1990s, things were pretty
-
universal. I mean we'd gone from will this
happen to every, everyone had to be, you
-
know, everyone that mattered was pretty
much on the network. And the question was
-
how much bandwidth, what with these
servers, how do we work with all these
-
things? And so the, the original NSF Net
was aimed at research universities and
-
they had made a bunch of rules about that.
And, and there were some universities in
-
particular Cleveland the Case Western
Reserve at Cleveland it, well Cleveland
-
area, Case Western, around Case Western
Reserve University, had this thing called
-
a Freenet. And these were bulletin board
systems. And there was lots of bulletin
-
board systems but they were all very local
and some bulletin board systems started
-
having sort of partnerships with
universities and sneaking regular people
-
onto the Internet. I remember personally,
just in a working university, the internet
-
was this cool thing. And, it was something
that only we at universities could do.
-
And, we, we're the only ones that could
use it and all you want to do is tell
-
people about it. And then, things like
these Freenets made it available to the
-
average citizen and that just created so
much more demand. And so, towards, you
-
know, early 1990, late 1980s, this
academic only rule sort of started to be
-
relaxed and they made some rules about who
could do what. And by, by this point in
-
time, the cat was totally out of the bag,
right. I mean the network was 45 megabits
-
and all the schools on the planet. So, it
was pretty tough at this point for the,
-
for the lobbyists to shut it down [laugh],
right? They had carefully laid plans, had
-
failed and out we go. Okay, and so we have
this connectivity. And one thing I
-
remember about the connectivity in the
early days is we used to have post-it
-
notes of all the cool servers where you
could download software or where email
-
list were or, or newsgroups were. And, and
you, you have to have post-it notes and
-
keep track of all these host names
etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And so, once
-
the connectivity was there, and this was
happening worldwide and in additional states
-
as well. And the question was is how would
we organize all this information? How
-
would we make sense of it? And so we
started Illinois, University Illinois in
-
the supercomput er centers and we moved to
the University of Michigan, where the
-
first NSF Net happened, and then grew and
expanded. And the, the next place on our
-
stop is CERN, CERN High Energy Physics
Lab. And so, you probably know that the
-
CERN is the birthplace of the web but
that's not all it does. A matter of fact,
-
it chose that the web was not it's purpose
because it's purpose is Physics, high
-
Energy Physics. And. One of the things
about experimental Physics is that, kinda
-
like super computers. The in order to make
the next step in physics research, you
-
need to you need to build a bigger
experiment and a bigger experiment. So, it
-
used to be that a physicist could learn
things about electrons and neutrons by
-
something about the size of this table
like a cloud chamber. And something would
-
go through and they could write a little
paper. And then once, once you've seen
-
everything you can see and things and the
size of this table, you'll say, well, I'll
-
do something ten times larger than the
table. And then I get a new set of papers
-
and a new set of results and at some
point, you've, you've gained as much
-
Physics as you can gain from that. And
this repeats itself, and it gets larger
-
and larger and larger. And it gets to the
point where you literally can only afford
-
to have one experimental facility in the
entire world. And this is what CERN is
-
dedicated to. It's dedicated to the notion
of if you're going to build a physics
-
experiment, let's build it here at CERN.
And there's a whole structure around this
-
where people come from all over the world.
It physically straddles the border between
-
France and Switzerland. It's got, you
know, that Switzerland of course, has you
-
know, has really good relationships and
people can come and, you know, even
-
Russian, you know, back when there was
some tension between governments,
-
scientists can still get together and
work. And the lead time on these projects
-
is fifteen to twenty years and the, the
size of the things that they build is just
-
gigantic like the, the Atl as the, the,
the, the, most recent detector is like six
-
stories tall and took years to build. So,
these people have to work and build and
-
think. And it turns out that they have a
lot of fun. So I'm going to introduce you
-
in this next slide to the Cernettes. So,
the Cernettes, is a musical group from
-
CERN. And, and so basically you [laugh],
you, you can view some of the videos that
-
I have here. You don't have to, but I
suggest that you do. They're just pure
-
fun. Their, their, their music is about
the web, about high-energy physics, about
-
colliders, and about supercomputers. And
you see the women sitting around the
-
supercomputer in one of their music
videos. And so, it's just kind of fun. But
-
remember that the reason that these people
are together is to mix something that
-
can't be made separately. So, take a look
and then come back. Well, welcome back. So
-
continuing. I have been to CERN many
times. The first time that I went to CERN
-
was to do a lecture recording. And I have
been working for many years, since 1999,
-
with a physicist named Steven Goldfarb.
That's Steven Goldfribe right there. He is
-
the lead singer of the, of the Canettes
Blues Band. And everyone else in the
-
Canettes Blues Band is also a physicist,
[inaudible] physicist. She actually is I
-
believe the secretary general something.
So, these people are all physicist and,
-
and, and so they, they play together,
right? You saw the Cernettes, if you
-
choose to see. And now, here we have the
Canettes. This is a blues band. Part of
-
the reason that they do blues is because,
you know, these people come from America
-
and they like the blues, and there might
not be a blues band so they just make one.
-
They actually have a club. The CERN
provides a place for them to play music
-
and they have lots of fun. And so, so, the
other thing I like about CERN, if you ever
-
get a chance to visit go in the back, this
is the cafeteria right by the building 40.
-
And they have steak. I mean, the food is
just magnificent. I mean, it's Europe.
-
It's, it's France and Switzerland, after
all. And, and there's, I just have so many
-
fond memories of hanging out at this, at
this cafe. And so, then we have over here
-
not a lot of people probably have a family
photo, deep inside the detector pit, of
-
the Atlas. And so and so, let's see,
where's my, there's my wife, Teresa, right
-
there, my son, Brent there's me and
there's my daughter, Mandy. And so we took
-
a family trip to CERN and now, you can't
go in, let me clear this bit here, let me
-
clear this. You can't go in the detector
anymore, right. So, this is the five
-
stories, this is where the beam comes in.
So, down there that`s the 2.5 stories and
-
then up is another 2.5 stories. We happen
to be in the middle when we are taking
-
this picture. If you are to go into, into
this area right now, this is full of
-
equipment, okay. Just absolutely, just
full. Go look for the Atlas detector. And,
-
and basically you actually can't go in cuz
it's all full of radiation now, too. And
-
so we got in one of the, this was not,
this was early on. I came back and got
-
another tour when it was almost done. And
so, this just is fun, but really smart
-
people. And so, that's sort of the, the
key message here. So I'm going to show you
-
another video and this video is optional
and this is a video of blues, our blues
-
band, Steven Goldfarb, and other
physicists and then I, I showed up and
-
sang with them. And so, this again is
optional. So again, what I say is as you
-
see the crowd shots, most of the crowd are
also physicists. They work really hard and
-
they play really hard. Okay. Welcome back.
So, why did I waste all that time showing
-
you music videos and other silly things?
Well, I mentioned that innovation springs
-
from a culture. It doesn't spring from
sort of like someone saying you innovate
-
right now. It springs from a culture of
fun and accepting new ideas and trying new
-
things and then attempting to do
something. And maybe, maybe you don't even
-
accomplish w hat you tried to do but you,
you run into something really cool along
-
the way. And that really is the story of
the web. You know the internet was there.
-
The packets were moving. We could move
files. We could, move images. We could
-
move video. But we couldn't find it and it
looked ugly. But frankly, to those of us
-
using it, who cared if it was ugly. Once
you figured it out, it was just, just
-
totally awesome. And so, this group,
Robert Cailliau and Tim Berners-Lee were
-
working at CERN. And they had a problem to
solve. And the problem they wanted to
-
solve was the distributed documentation
for physicists. Now, these people have to
-
build things that take twenty years with
thousands of people spread all over the
-
earth. So, they have to like come up with
designs. They have to share the designs.
-
They have to write reports. They have to
tell, you know, they have to do some kind
-
of an audit. So, they needed to sort of
write documents. Except they wanted to
-
share them. And they wanted to use this
new internet thing to allow the collective
-
editing of documents. Now, that starts to
sound a little bit like Wikipedia, but
-
it's not. What they wanted to, what they
wanted was the documents to be on
-
different computers and then link the
documents together and make it so you
-
could edit them. So, certain documents
might be in Poland, and certain documents
-
might be in Switzerland, and certain
documents might be in the United States of
-
America, other documents might be in
Japan. And they wanted to be able to edit
-
them all and then link them all together
and edit them both locally and remotely as
-
well. And so, they created effectively a
hypertext text editor with hyper links in
-
it. Alright, these links from one web, one
online document to another. They had to
-
figure out the format to write these
documents in. Then they had to figure out
-
a way to represent links. And then they
had to figure out a network protocol to
-
move the data back and forth, to store and
retrieve the documents. And all that
-
becomes HTTP, the hypertext transf er
protocol, HTML, the hypertext markup
-
language. Web servers, which is where the
HTPD web servers, which is where the
-
documents are stored. And web browsers.
And so, they had to build a complete
-
infrastructure to create the document,
distributed documentation environment that
-
they had imagined. So, lets go meet Robert
Cailliau at CERN, in his office just
-
across the street from where the coffee
shop and the steaks are at in the CERN
