TOP BRITS An idea that began thirty-five years ago as a way for scientists to share information led to the most radical changes the modern world has seen. The computer scientist behind it, Tim Berners-Lee, was born in London in 1955. In 1989, he was working at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland. Tired of consulting colleagues through constant questions, on 12 March he sent a proposal to his boss for a system to share information. Called Mesh1, the system would use the new technology of hypertext, which connected documents, and store those documents on multiple servers, controlled by interconnected people. “Vague but exciting,” his boss replied.
A GIFT FOR THE WORLD
Nothing happened for a year. Then Berners-Lee started to write code to implement his…
