【一起听英语】网络的发展（在线收听）

网络从诞生到有现在的发展也有20多年了，在这20年间，网络已经在悄然得改变着我们的生活....

Rob: Hello, I'm Rob.

Yvonne: I'm Yvonne.

Rob: And this is 6 Minute English! Today we’re celebrating a very special

anniversary - the 20th anniversary of the World Wide Web.

Yvonne: Ah, the World Wide Web. That’s something that's really changed our lives -

and in such a short space of time.

Rob: Hmm - definitely. Well, we’ll talk more about that in a moment - but first I

have a question for you: on average, how long does someone spend surfing the

net each day in the UK? Is it:

a) 7 minutes

b) 27 minutes or

c) 57 minutes

Yvonne: Umm – I'm going to say 27 minutes Rob, because I think people spend much

more time on things like Facebook. 

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Rob: Hmm – that's true. Well, I’ll give you the right answer at the end of the

programme. But now, let’s find out more about the World Wide Web – or

'www' for short.

Yvonne: www – that’s an acronym! It was on Christmas Day, 20 years ago, that a

breakthrough was made in the development of the internet.

Rob: Yes, a breakthrough or a discovery. The man most associated with this

discovery is Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He’s been nicknamed ‘The Father of the

Web’.

Yvonne: What an amazing thing to invent - but of course, other people were also

involved.

Rob: Yes, of course. Tim Berners-Lee has been quoted as saying: “the remarkable

progress of the Web today has been quite gratifying to me”. 'Gratifying' – that

really means being satisfied - or pleased.

Yvonne: Mm... so he’s really pleased with what has happened to the web – and rightly

so! Rob, can you tell me a bit more about his achievement?

Rob: Well, Sir Tim Berners-Lee worked on the first web page in his spare time. He

was a computer scientist and a computer programmer.

Yvonne: And what did his groundbreaking web page say? 

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Rob: It was just information about the project that he was working on. The web

page had a very catchy address: nxoc01.cern.ch!

Yvonne: Ha ha! Yeah, really catchy!

Rob: C.E.R.N spells CERN, and that’s the European Organisation for Nuclear

Research, which is where he worked. But the page didn't actually go online

until August 1991.

Yvonne: But this really heralded the start of people communicating by computer?

Rob: Yes. It really showed how computers could talk to each other using a language

called Hyper Text Mark up Language.

Yvonne: Ah - that’s HTML for short!

Rob: Very good!

Yvonne: So, HTML is the language that computers use to talk to each other – to

communicate with each other.

Rob: It’s very clever isn’t it?

Yvonne: Hmmm.

Rob: And since then the internet has evolved at a rapid rate. Now, there are believed

to be around one trillion web pages. 

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Yvonne: Whew! And I’m sure almost everyone uses the internet now – but I wonder

how we'd cope without it?

Rob: Well, we've been asking people just that. Listen to what they said when we

asked: how would you cope without the World Wide Web?

Insert:

Man:

I'd just have to do without it, wouldn't I? If you remember all the scare stories of the

millennium that, you know, all the power stations would shut down and all that – it

didn't happen. As long as my central heating wasn't controlled by the internet, I'd just

have to manage.

Woman:

Probably not very well. Umm - I imagine that most of my social relationships would be a

lot more difficult. And also keeping in contact with people far away would also be

impossible.

Man:

Err – with great difficulty (laughs)! It would be the phone, I imagine, and lots more

writing, lots more paper. Umm – we'd need bigger file cabinets.

Rob: So the first man would cope without the internet, as long as the computers

which help provide power for his central heating – that's the system he uses to

keep warm – isn't affected! He says he'd just have to 'do without it'.

Yvonne: The woman was most worried about her social relationships – keeping in

contact with her friends and family.

Rob: Yes, especially those who are far away. In fact, she thinks keeping in contact

with them would be impossible without the internet. But the last man we heard 

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from doesn't agree. Although he says he would cope with great difficulty, he

does have some alternatives – ideas about what we could do instead.

Yvonne: And he has a good point I think, Rob. We could write to each other - like we

used to before we had the internet. It would be lovely to get more hand-written

letters from friends and family rather than just e-mails, I think.

Rob: That's what we call 'snail-mail'. But of course, as that man pointed out, lots

more paper would mean that we'd need bigger file cabinets – the pieces of

furniture that are used to keep all those bits of paper safe.

Yvonne: It’s incredible how the World Wide Web has expanded in twenty years, and

how much we now rely on it. I wonder what it will be like after another twenty

years.

Rob: Well, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said: “we have only scratched the surface of

what could be realised with deeper scientific investigation into the Web’s

design, operation and impact on society”.

Yvonne: It’s true. We've only just begun to understand how useful the World Wide Web

can really be, especially for people in developing countries.

Rob: So this technological breakthrough, twenty years ago, is something worth

celebrating! Now, Yvonne, earlier I asked you a question. On average, how

long does someone spend surfing the net each day in the UK? 

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Yvonne: And I said 27 minutes.

Rob: And you were wrong.

Yvonne: Oh no!

Rob: The average time people spend on the internet each day is a lot longer than that.

It's 57 minutes.

Yvonne: Oh - and without Sir Tim and his colleagues’ work, it wouldn’t be possible at

all.

Rob: That’s right. Well, we do hope you’ve enjoyed today’s 6 Minute English.

Both: Bye bye.