The Internet

So this week in class we were talking a lot about the internet and how it works. To me it is all such a fascinating concept and I can't imagine how people could ever come up with something so complex. One of the things I was wondering about is how the Internet is it phisically connected, and how is it connected globally? So I decided to search some articles about it.

On Wikipedia I found out that the Internet is a collection of interconected computer networks linked together by copper wires, fiber-optic cables and wireless connections. See Internet
With a DSL connection for example, the information is sent through already existing wiring like the telephone line or cable lines.
Wireless networks send information through a transmition of electromagnetic waves. Another less popular option uses satelite dishes to transmit data from a computer to satelites in outer space that retransmit the information back down to earth. Finaly dial-up modems transform the information ito sounds and the sounds back into data.
Information itself gets transformed into little packages of information called packets and these packets are transmited from one computer to the next. The set of rules for the formulation and reading of packets is called the IP or the internet protocol. This protocal enables computers to understand and interpret the packets of data arriving to their computer. The IP also recognizes any malfunctions in packets and requests that packet to be sent again before it is executed on the receiving computer. The hardware devices that receive the packets read the packet headers, which tell the computere where the data should be sent, are called routers. The information thus travels in packets from router to router. And the Internet is born!