From Physics to Daily Life

3WWW and More

Robert Cailliau

The World Wide Web (WWW), as it is known today, is almost commonplace. This incredible and powerful tool, the birth of which took place thanks to a number of players, is now taken for granted. This is one person's story of how the WWW came into being as the brainchild of Tim Berners-Lee, with the influence of many other people, at a very special place called CERN.

Public communication is the art of being accurate while leaving out all the essential details. As such it is, in the words of CERN theoretical physicist John Ellis: ‘necessary but hopeless’. The tale is part historic, part sociological, and part private opinion. The author is alone to blame for any inaccuracies.

• Caveat 1: The Web is not based on any physical laws, its characteristics are not constrained by anything other than available computing power and network bandwidth. The Web is not based on any scientific discovery. Its development flowed from sociology, and therefore this chapter is much more about interacting people, and because the author was one of those actors it is quite personal.
• Caveat 2: The Web is on the Web, meaning that almost all documents of importance have been published there and do not exist in printed form. The two most important documents – the original proposal¹⁾ and the public domain statement²⁾ – have never been published in the classical way; indeed, neither even carries an internal CERN reference. The proceedings of the Web conferences have been published ...