Computers and Internet milestones Fact File

Computer use worldwide❍

In 1943 Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM, made one of the least accurate predictions ever. He said, "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

              There are currently over one billion personal computers around the world. Forecasts for 2007 estimate that by then there will be 162 computers in use for every  1,000 people on the planet. The figure for a few countries is abundant higher. In the United States of America, there may be as many as 831 per 1,000 people.

                                                                           1985         1990        1995        2000       2002      2007   

PCs (total in millions)                                         31.4         98            226          523         663        1,069

PCs per 1,000 people                                          6.5           18.7         40            86.2        106.4      162.1

Internet Milestone❍

In a little over 10 years, the Internet has become a global phenomenon. In 1995 it had been employed by about 45 million people around the world. By 2006 the figure had quite doubled to 1,018,057,389. By the time you read this, this figure will have hyperbolic..

The 1960s

During the 1960s scientists in the USA began attempting to work out how organizations could detain bit with one another after a nuclear attack. In 1965 ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) advised linking computers. In 1969 computers at four US universities were connected and were able to "talk" to every alternative for the primary time.

The 1970s

The network was extended and in 1973 computers were connected between London and Norway. At the same time, electronic mail (e-mail) was getting used more and more to send messages between computers. In 1976 Queen Elizabeth II became the first monarch to send an e-mail message. In 1979 the first Usenet newsgroup (online discussion groups) began.

The 1980s

By 1981 the ARPA network had 213 hosts (sites to which users could connect). A replacement host was added approximately every 20 days. In 1982 a typical language referred to as TCP/IP was fictitious that allowed all Internet computers to communicate with each other and the network was first called an INTERNET. In the 1980s many more individuals and businesses began to use computers. The Internet began to be used commercially, in additiona as by governments and Universities.

The 1990s

In 1991 the World Wide Web (www) was created. It combined words, pictures, and sounds in a system that ordinary people might simply perceive and use. By 1994 approximately 40 million people were connected to the Internet. They might exchange information, sell goods, and work from any computer with a phone line. The Rolling Stones rock group even broadcast a concert over the internet. Schools started using the Internet as an electronic library. By 1996 users in almost 150 countries around the world were connected to the Internet.

The 2000s

High-speed broadband and wireless access are currently widespread and more and more businesses are using the Internet to promote and sell products and services, In 2001 there were 533 million Internet users worldwide. Experts predict that by 2007 about 1,460 million people will be using the Internet. 

Animal Space Pioneers

Before humans went into space animals were used to test equipment. The first animal to be sent up in a rocket -however not into space - was Albert 1, a male Macaca Mulatta monkey. He was launched in a US Air force reborn German V2 rocket in 1948. He and his successor, Albert 2, died during the tests.

However, on 20 September 1951, a monkey and 11 mice were recovered after a launch in a US Aerobee rocket. Several animal experiments were carried out before the first manned space flight to test the consequences of radiation and weightlessness on living bodies.

Space dogs, and a cat

Laika

Laika, a feminine Samoyed husky, became the first animal in orbit after being launched by Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in Sputnik 2 on 3 Gregorian calendar month 1957. There was no way to bring her down and she died after 10 days in space. More dogs were launched in tests before human cosmonauts went into orbit. Two feminine Samoyed huskies, Belka and Strelka, orbited successfully on 19 August 1960. Strelka later gave birth to 6 puppies, one of which was given to American President John F. Kennedy. On 18 October 1963, a French Veronique AGI rocket launched a cat called Felix into space and returned him safely to Earth by parachute.

Monkey business

Baker

Able, a feminine Macaca mulatta monkey, and Baker, a female platyrrhine (squirrel monkey), were launched by the USA on 28 MAy 1959. They failed to orbit and successfully returned to Earth. On 29 Gregorian calendar month 1961 Enos, a male chimpanzee, completed two orbits and survived. Many other chimpanzees and Monkeys have since orbited. The USSR's first space primates were monkeys Abrek and Bion, who orbited on 14 December 1983 in one of a series of Bion satellite experiments, which also carried tortoises, rats, insects, fish, newts, and frogs.

Flying Frogs

On 9 November 1970, the USA's orbiting frog Otolith satellite (OFO-A) launched two bullfrogs into orbit for a week. Between 2 and 10 December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama, a Japanese journalist, took six green tree frogs to the Soviet Mir space station to conduct weightlessness experiments.

Worldwide web

Arabella

Arabella, an orb-weaving garden spider, arrived at the US Skylab-3 on 28 July 1973. She spent almost 60 days in orbit in an experiment to test the effect of weightlessness on her web-weaving skills.

A space menagerie

The STS-90 mission of space shuttle Columbia (17 April to 3 MAy 1998) contained the Neurolab - a space menagerie with 170 baby rats, 18 mice, 229 swordtail fish, 135 snails, 4 oyster toadfish and 1,514 cricket eggs and larvae.

Can of worms

On 1 February 2003, a space shuttle Columbia STS-107 broke up on re-entry and its crew of seven astronauts was killed. On-board animal experiments involving silkworms, spiders, carpenter bees, harvester ants and Japanese killifish were destroyed, but, amazingly, canisters of worms were recovered alive.

Iceberg fact file

An iceberg is a large piece of ice that has broken away from a glacier or ice shelf. Icebergs in the North Atlantic mostly come from glaciers on Greenland, and those in the South Atlantic from the Antartic.

• The word icebergs probably come from the Dutch ijsberg or ice hill.
• Icebergs float because they are made of fresh water which is less dense than seawater.
• Seven-eights of an iceberg is below the surface of the sea, hence the expression "the tip of the iceberg", which means that more is concealed than can be seen.
• The tallest iceberg ever measured was 168m high. It was seen in 1958 off Greenland and was as tall as a 50 - story skyscraper.
•  Small icebergs are known as Growlers, because of the noise they make.
• Icebergs larger than growlers(1metre+) are called bergy bits; then they are graded small, medium, large or very large. Very large icebergs are those measuring more than 75m high and 213m wide.
• One of the biggest icebergs of recent times, known as B-15, broke away from the  Ross Ice Shelf, Antartica, in March 2000. It had an average length of 295km and width of 37km, giving it a total area of about the size of Jamaica!
• The air trapped in iceberg ice - which is "harvested" and sold for use in drinks - may be as much as 3,000 years old.
• At least 500 incidents have been recorded of ships striking icebergs. In 1875, the 82 crew members of the schooner Caledonia were rescued after their ship sank they spent a night sitting on an iceberg. The worst - ever disaster involving an iceberg happened when the Titanic struck an iceberg on 14 April 1912 and 1,503 lives lost their lives.
• During WW2, Lord Mountbatten led a program devised by British inventor Geoffrey Pyke to build artificial icebergs to use as aircraft carriers, but the project, codenamed Habbakuk, was abandoned.
• About 10,000 to 15,000 new icebergs are formed every year. The process is called "Calving".

Star Facts

A star may be a bright body of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium. Stars generate light, which makes it possible for us to see them with a telescope or the naked eye. They conjointly unharness energy from fission reactions in their core.

Brightest

Sirius

Not numerating the Sun, the brightest star as seen from Earth is Sirius, known as the dog or binary star, in the constellation of Canis Major. It has a diameter of 149,598,020km and is over twenty-four times brighter than the Sun. The star Cygnus OB2 No 12, discovered in 1992, is so far away that it can't be seen from the planet Earth. It may be the brightest star in the Galaxy - up to six million times as bright as our Sun.

Heaviest

HDE 269810

HDE 269810 is a star in the Large Magellanic Cloud - 170,000 light years from Earth. It's been discovered by the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope to be one hundred ninety times as heavy as our Sun.

Largest

Betelgeuse

The largest star is the M-class supergiant Betelgeuse or Alpha Orionis. It is the highest left star within the constellation of Orion, which is 310 light years away. It has a diameter of 700million km, which is about 500 times greater than that of the Sun.

Nearest

Proxima Centauri

Proxima Centauri, discovered in 1915, is 4.22 light-years from Earth. A space vehicle moving at 40,000km/h - which is quicker than any human has yet traveled in space - would take more than 114,000 years to reach it.

Supernovae

Supernovae

These are large explosions during which a whole star is blown up. They're extraordinarily bright, rivaling for a few days the combined light output of all the stars within the galaxy. Supernovae are rare - the last one in our galaxy was seen in 1604 by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler.

Quasars

Quasar

Quasars are extremely distant radio galaxies - galaxies giving out an outsized quantity of radio energy - and the brightest objects in the Universe. Even those close to the foremost distant fringe of the noticeable Universe are simply detected by small radio telescopes. Their radio emission is typically 1,000,000 to 100,000,000 times greater than that of a traditional galaxy, and they are as bright as or brighter than the brightest radio galaxies.

Black Holes 

Black Hole

A black hole is a star that has collapsed into itself. It has a surface gravity so powerful that nothing will escape from it.