Damian Harvey - Tim Berners-Lee

www.franklinwatts.co.uk

When Timothy Berners-Lee was born in 1955, the world was very different to the one that you and I know today. People didnt have computers or games consoles in their homes, and TV programmes were in black and white, with just one channel!

Tim grew up in South West London. At school, Tim wasnt very good at sports,

but he loved maths and science.

His school had two busy train lines running past either side of it. Tim was fascinated by all the trains that he saw passing by and he started to make a note of the different ones that he spotted.

Like lots of other boys, Tim had a model railway in his bedroom. He loved watching the model trains racing around the tracks, disappearing into the tunnels, then returning to the station.

To make his design even better, Tim made gadgets to control the trains. He soon became more interested in electronics than in trains.

Tims mum, Mary Lee Woods, and his dad, Conway Berners-Lee, were mathematicians and computer programmers. Together, they had worked on some of the worlds first computers.

They were sure that, one day, computers could be programmed to do anything. They loved sharing their exciting ideas with their son.

One day, Tim came home from school to find his father reading a book about the human brain.

His father was wondering how the brain connected odd things togetherlike smelling something that instantly makes you think of another place that youve been to.

While his father wondered if computers could connect things in the same way, Tim went off to do his homework. But those little thoughts stayed in his mind.

After leaving school, Tim went to Oxford University. Although he loved maths, he decided to study physics - the science that looks at natural matter and energy.

He thought this would be more useful because he would learn about light, sound, heat, electronics, mechanics and the structure of atoms that make up everything in the universe.

As an experiment, Tim bought an old television set from a repair shop and used it to build himself a computer.

In 1976, Tim graduated from Oxford University with a first class degree in physics. He couldnt wait to start programming computers and building things for himself.

At first he worked for a couple of different companies on things like barcode technology and then writing special software for printers.

Then, in 1980, Tim went to do some work for CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Lots of scientists and university professors from all over the world work at CERN. They use huge machines to help them discover new things about the smallest particles in the universe.

Tim went there to work on computer software that could help scientists store and look at information collected from their experiments.

While working at CERN, Tim grew tired of spending so much time trying to find information that was stored on many different peoples computers.

Because the people at CERN came from so many different places, it meant that their computers were different too. Tim had to learn how to use them all.

To make his work easier, Tim wrote some computer programs that helped him take information from one computer and put it onto another one.

This was a great step forward but Tim was sure there must be a better way of doing it.

He wondered if all the computers could be linked together so that information could be shared quickly and easily. Then he remembered an old book he had seen on his parents bookshelf.

The book was called
Enquire Within Upon Everything.

It had first been written in 1856 when Queen Victoria was on the throne but Tim had been fascinated by it. Just imagine how wonderful it would be to have a book that told you everything you wanted to know about anything.

The book was full of hints and advice. It told you what to do if you wanted to bake bread, choose a wife or bury a relative. In fact,