I've noticed that American articles cite Vint Cerf as the "father/inventor of the internet", while British press give the same titles to Tim Berners-Lee. Of course both were instrumental, but as you say, many people and teams were involved in the creation of what we know as the Internet today.
It's such a great piece of political rhetoric that pushed the false idea of Al Gore claiming to have "invented the Internet". If you accept that Vint Cerf was a key person in the creation of the Internet as we know it, you'll probably be interested in his opinion of Al Gore's actual role.
Al Gore was the first political leader to recognize the importance of the
Internet and to promote and support its development.
No one person or even small group of persons exclusively "invented" the
Internet. It is the result of many years of ongoing collaboration among
people in government and the university community. But as the two people
who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the
Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a
Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to
our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of
time.
Agreed, it's one of the few "popular comments" that irks me enough to force someone into an argument when it's quipped in ignorance.
Specifically because Gore has been a supporter of science in general as a politician.
Makes me sad to think that if a Supreme Court decision had gone another way, or Florida had had a different ballot, then the US would have ended up with a technocrat in office and probably not invading Iraq. Missed opportunities...
I should maybe mention that I meant this in jest - I think very highly of Al Gore and the joke was intended to allude to Cerf's high opinion of his role in the early days.
I don't think Al Gore claimed to have literally invented the Internet, and believed that was the gag this whole time.
Have people been walking around thinking he actually believed that this whole time?
In terms of inventions, Tim Berners Lee is associated with the World Wide Web while Vint Cerf is associated with Internet. Is this different in the USA and British?
Back in the olden days, before http, before URL's, before html, before all these kids were on my lawn, you could actually use (pun intended) the net, without using the world wide web.
As an American who grew up in the US, I've only ever heard TBL cited as the inventor/father of the web (or sometimes internet), and have never heard of Vint Cerf before as best I can recall. Anecdata, for what it's worth.
