Knighthood for Publicity-Shy Inventor of the World Wide Web

Tim Berners-Lee, the publicity-shy physicist who invented the world wide web, has been awarded a knighthood.

An unsung hero of the modern age, Mr Berners-Lee is named in today's New Year's Honours List for "services to the internet" - creating the system that has revolutionised computer use across the globe.

The system, which he devised in his spare time in 1991 while working as a researcher at the European particle research laboratory Cern, features billions of web pages used by hundreds of millions of people every day.

Crucially, Mr Berners-Lee gave his invention away rather than trying to patent or restrict its use, making it possible for the web to grow at a rate never seen. Without his creation, there would be no "www" computer addresses, and the internet might still be the exclusive domain of a handful of computer experts.

In typically modest fashion, the 48-year-old Briton was at pains yesterday to point out that he did not invent the internet itself, but instead devised a method for more easily accessing what was there.

"I'm very honoured, although it still feels strange. I feel like quite an ordinary person and so the good news is that it does happen to ordinary people who work on things that happen to work out, like the web," he said.

Mr Berners-Lee is one of the least glitzy names in an honours list shot through with New Labour's characteristic emphasis on pop, sport and celebrity. There are CBEs for Ray Davies of The Kinks; Stephen Daldry, the director of Billy Elliot; the rock star Eric Clapton; and the best-selling children's author Philip Pullman.

As in recent years, there is a strong political emphasis on public services, with knighthoods for teachers who turned around failing schools, and CBEs for nurses, cancer specialists and others in the NHS.

An MBE was given to Inspector Paul Cahill, the chairman of the Gay Police Association, for helping to modernise attitudes within the police force.

The entire England rugby team is honoured for its World Cup victory, with a knighthood for Clive Woodward, the head coach. Martin Johnson, the captain, is made a CBE and Jonny Wilkinson an OBE.

Among the foreign and diplomatic list, one of the most interesting awards is a CMG to Alastair Crooke, the MI6 agent who acted as a link man between militant Palestinians and the Israeli Government. Harold Evans, a former editor of The Times, is knighted.

The list comprises 981 names, of which 480 or 47 per cent are nominated by members of the public, slightly down on last year. Services to the community, including police and local councils, make up 30 per cent of the total, by far the biggest proportion. Business and science make up 20 per cent, education and health 10 per cent each, the arts 8 per cent and sport 7 per cent.

This year's list has attracted unprecedented attention because of leaked Cabinet Office documents revealing how honours are awarded. As predicted, Tim Henman, who civil servants said would "add interest" to the list, is granted an OBE. Similarly, Simon Jenkins, The Times columnist whom officials said would add gravitas, is knighted. Colin Blakemore, the neuroscientist who was considered too controversial for an honour, is not included.

The leaks also showed how many people in public life had rejected honours they deemed old fashioned and linked to the former British empire. Among those who turned down awards were David Bowie, Nigella Lawson and David Hockney.

A review of the system is under way to overhaul the secrecy and selection methods of those suitable for awards. Tony Blair's spokeswoman said: "It is important to achieve greater transparency and a greater independent input."

The knighthood for Mr Berners-Lee will help to restore the credibility of the system. Although he could have made a personal fortune in the private sector, he earns an academic salary as the head of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

"To a certain extent it's an acknowledgement of the profession as well, that it's useful and creditable and not a passing trend. There was a time when people felt the internet was another world, but now people realise it's a tool that we use in this world," Mr Berners-Lee said yesterday.

(American) Admiral Daniel Gallery was responsible for capturing a German U-Boat during WWII had earlier worked with the British doing convoy planning.

He was amazed at all the initials that followed all the British names on their memos...every one of them had a series of initials behind them. One night he signed a memo, "CAPT D. Gallery, DDTM". He continued doing that for weeks.

He remarked that his British allies suddenly treated him more respectfully until one day he was cornered and asked what exactly was the DDTM.

"Dan, Dan the Toilet Man".

Pardon my ignorance, but what's the difference?

The internet is the name of the network itself. The web is just one thing that runs on the internet.

Think of the Web as a sort of overlay on the Internet. The Internet is the system that links computers to communicate with each other, and was invented by the US military in the 60s (ARPANET). Before the World Wide Web, internet communication was through text-based email programs and things like Gopher (anyone else remember Gopher?) The Web was the beginning of http (hypertext) that allowed for the creation of graphical web pages that link to each other through hyperlinks. The Web is what most people today think of today when they think of the "Internet".

"The Web is what most people today think of today..."

Ack, that was lovely. I said "today" twice, didn't I?

CAPT D. Gallery, DDTM

For some reason this struck me as incredibly funny.

Reminds me a bit of when I was in school and went to a karate match. To keep from paying I walked in right behind a karate team and told the ticket taker I was the team's "spiritual leader". Maybe he believed me or simply thought it wasn't worth the hassle to see if I was telling the truth. Got in for free.

Well, the internet is a set of computers that were connected many years ago. When I was in college over 20 years ago, most universities were connected via the internet.

To access other computers you had to use FTP, File Transfer Protocol. It was very tedius, and mostly only computer geeks (like myself) did this.

It wasn't until the web browsers were created and made accessing the internet easy for non-computer geeks.

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