The Past, Present, and Future of the Worldwide Web (Best of OLLI)
It is probably not hyperbole to say that the World Wide Web (WWW) is one of the most disruptive and influential technologies of the past three decades.The Web has changed the way society accesses information, revolutionized the way it shops, redefined social interaction, provided a new medium for entrainment and enabled new opportunities for education. To most people, the Web appeared without warning – few are aware of its origins and how it achieved such a prominent role in our lives.
What we know as the Web is actually a convergence of ideas and technologies that came together driven by a need for efficient, seamless, and transparent communication. It was one of several competing applications designed for that single purpose. The Web’s influencers and inventor(s) never imagined its future global adoption and how it would eventually be used for such a variety of applications and become a development platform on its own.
This course is presented from the perspective of someone who was fortunate to be "in the room where it happened."
Faculty Bio
Bebo White is retired from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the U.S. National Laboratory at Stanford University where he worked as a computational physicist. He currently holds faculty appointments at multiple academic institutions.
This is a Best of OLLI Course
- Best of OLLI courses are popular courses recorded a previous term
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Member Praise for Bebo White
Bebo was great!!! So knowledgeable.
Excellent interactive and engaging speaker who kept me engaged throughout. Fascinating material.
Faculty Q&A
- Read an interview with Bebo White from our archive.