Entry 4 - Leonard Kleinrock: The ARPANET

Description of Topic
In the mid 1900s, a lot of the basic computing technology that we are familiar with today had already been developed at its most basic form. Computers existed and their abilities expanded human computational power, but there still was no way to bring this computing power to the general public or a way for computer scientists to easily work collaboratively. Then came Leonard Kleinrock, who, along with fellow computer scientists Donald Davies and Paul Baran, came up with packet switched networks, the foundation for what we now know as the Internet. 

Kleinrock's life is a true story of perseverance and the American dream, as he was born to a poor family of Ukrainian immigrants. Not able to afford to go to college, Kleinrock lobbied for scholarships from every town government he could reach before finally getting the opportunity to take night classes at New York City College where he excelled so much that upon his graduation, he was able to get into MIT in order to work on getting his Phd and masters degree, both of which he achieved in the late 50s and early 60s. From there Kleinrock went to UCLA to conduct research in computer science, and it was here that he created the earliest form of the internet.  

Kleinrock didn't invent the internet itself, simply an early form of the internet called The ARPANET, or "The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network." ¹ It had many of the elements of the modern internet, namely Kleinrock's main contribution: Packet Switching. Before Kleinrock, data communications worked by transferring data from one communicating station to another using a single electronic connection, or multiple electronic connections strung together. These electronic connections were dedicated to only those two stations and could not be used by other stations, and stations could only be connected to one other station at a time. Packet switching allowed stations to use a single electronic connection to be connected to multiple stations, which vastly expanded the ability for computers to collaborate with one another.⁶ As Kleinrock himself said: "The idea was, don't dedicate a resource to somebody -- when I was sitting there, scratching my head, that machine was idle, I'm not using it. You want to do it in dynamic fashion: whoever needs it gets it now. If you're not using it, let somebody else in." ⁴ The ARPANET was revolutionary for its time, and allowed users to connect with one another, from University professors to the military. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990 as new and more advanced versions of the internet came into existence.



Connection to Computer Science
Although Kleinrock's ARPANET didn't last into modern times, the principles that he used in creating it were instrumental in the creation of the modern internet. The internet is vastly important to computer science, as it allows computer scientists to connect with one another, and has expanded the influence of computers to non computer scientists. The internet is so vastly important to every single thing we do today and is one of the main reasons a lot of people choose to go into computer science. Without Kleinrock's innovations in packet switching, the internet may have never came to be and this very blog may have had to be written in a newspaper.

References

1: “ARPANET.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Nov. 2017,
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET.

2: “Internet Hall of Fame.” Leonard Kleinrock | Internet Hall of Fame, Internet Society, internethalloffame.org/inductees/leonard-kleinrock.

3: “Leonard Kleinrock.” Computer Hope, 15 Sept. 2017, www.computerhope.com/people/leonard_kleinrock.htm.

4: “Leonard Kleinrock.” History of Computers and Computing, Internet, Birth, Leonard Kleinrock, history-computer.com/Internet/Birth/Kleinrock.html.

5: “Leonard Kleinrock.” Leonard Kleinrock's Home Page, University of California Los Angeles, www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/index.html.

6: “Packet Switching.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Nov. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_switching.

7: “What Is ARPANET?” Computer Hope, 16 June 2017, www.computerhope.com/jargon/a/arpanet.htm.

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