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The Past Half Century of Engineering--And a Look Forward Summary of a Forum (2015) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Seeds of the Internet - and Its Future
Pages 8-12

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From page 8...
... In the 1940s Vannevar Bush wrote about the Memex, a machine that would store the collective memories and creations of humanity. In the 1960s, Leonard Kleinrock, Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, built with his colleagues a computer network that he saw as the forerunner of a system that would be always on, always available, and always accessible to anyone with any device from any location.
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From page 9...
... Watson, come here, I want to see you," sent by Alexander Graham Bell to his assistant over the first telephone; and "One giant leap for mankind," uttered by Neil Armstrong as he stepped onto the moon. "Those guys were smart.
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From page 10...
... Watson, come here, I want to see you.'" THE DARK SIDE OF THE INTERNET After 25 years of growth, the first massive spam message on the Internet came from two lawyers named Canter and Siegel, who were trying to sell their services to help people get green cards. Their Internet service provider received so many emailed objections that it crashed.
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From page 11...
... We will get to the frontier and we will be the next whoever.' But when they approach the frontiers of knowledge, they realize, ‘My god, I can't move a thing.'" He also labeled computers "the worst enemy of deep thinking." Students run a computer model and think they then know how a system behaves. "They have to do more than computation," he said.
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From page 12...
... But as engineered systems become bigger and more complex, they are behaving in ways that engineers cannot necessarily understand or anticipate. "In all aspects of engineering, we have to step back and address complexity as an issue." The best prediction about the future of the Internet is that it will be unpredictable, Kleinrock concluded.
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Key Terms

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  • vannevar bush
  • students run
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  • bush wrote

  • extreme mobility
  • green cards
  • built tools
  • stepped onto
  • ucla computer

  • people instantly
  • generate traffic
  • sri computer
  • agency network
  • preclude unanticipated

  • puter science
  • provider received
  • distance telegraph
  • massive spam
  • alexander graham

  • internet allows
  • graham bell
  • stanford research
  • hath god
  • unanticipated services

  • samuel morse
  • increasingly invisible
  • collective memories
  • complicated typing
  • video addiction


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