Golden Jubilee Photos: World Wide Web
At the end of the 1980s, the Internet was already a valuable tool to scientists, allowing them to exchange e-mails and to access powerful computers remotely. A more simple means of sharing information was needed, however, and CERN, with its long tradition of informatics and networking, was the ideal place to find it. Moreover, hundreds of scientists from all over the world were starting to work together on preparations for the experiments at the Large Electron-Positron (LEP) collider.
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee (see photo), a young scientist working at CERN, drafted a proposal for an information-management system combining the internet, personal computers and computer-aided document consultation, known as hypertext. In 1990 he was joined by Robert Cailliau and the weaving of the World Wide Web began in earnest, even though only two CERN computers were allocated to the task at the time. The Web subsequently underwent a steady expansion to include the world's main particle physics institutes.
The Web was not the only information-sharing system developed for the Internet. Other notable examples included the Gopher system, developed at the University of Minnesota in the United States. The turning point that allowed the CERN system to win through was the decision by the CERN Management to release the Web into the public domain, thus ensuring that users would always be able to use it free of charge.
While a single CERN server was used to develop the Web at the time of its inception, there are more than 46 million Web servers throughout the world today.
