----- Forwarded message from Dave Farber <[email protected]> ----- Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 04:14:25 -0400 From: Dave Farber <[email protected]> Subject: [IP] Fwd: NYT Opit for Paul Baran (full article) Reply-To: [email protected] To: ip <[email protected]>
Begin forwarded message: > From: Richard Forno <[email protected]> > Date: March 27, 2011 11:06:29 PM EDT > To: Dave Farber <[email protected]> > Subject: NYT Opit for Paul Baran (full article) > > Dave -- FYI. --- rick > > > March 27, 2011 > Paul Baran, Internet Pioneer, Dies at 84 > > By KATIE HAFNER > > https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/technology/28baran.html > > Paul Baran, an engineer who helped create the technical underpinnings for the > Arpanet, the government-sponsored precursor to today???s Internet, died > Saturday night at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 84. > > The cause was complications from lung cancer, said his son, David. > > In the early 1960s, while working at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, > Calif., Mr. Baran outlined the fundamentals for packaging data into discrete > bundles, which he called ???message blocks.??? The bundles are then sent on > various paths around a network and reassembled at their destination. Such a > plan is known as ???packet switching.??? > > Mr. Baran???s idea was to build a distributed communications network, less > vulnerable to attack or disruption than conventional networks. In a series of > technical papers published in the 1960s he suggested that networks be > designed with redundant routes so that if a particular path failed or was > destroyed, messages could still be delivered through another. > > Mr. Baran???s invention was so far ahead of its time that in the mid-1960s, > when he approached AT&T with the idea to build his proposed network, the > company insisted it would not work and refused. > > ???Paul wasn???t afraid to go in directions counter to what everyone else > thought was the right or only thing to do,??? said Vinton Cerf, a vice > president at Google who was a colleague and longtime friend of Mr. Baran???s. > ???AT&T repeatedly said his idea wouldn???t work, and wouldn???t participate > in the Arpanet project,??? he said. > > In 1969, the Defense Department???s Advanced Research Projects Agency built > the Arpanet, a network that used Mr. Baran???s ideas, and those of others. > The Arpanet was eventually replaced by the Internet, and packet switching > still lies at the heart of the network???s internal workings. > > Paul Baran was born on April 29, 1926, in Grodno, Poland. His parents moved > to the United States in 1928, and Mr. Baran grew up in Philadelphia. His > father was a grocer, and as a boy, Paul delivered orders to customers in a > small red wagon. > > He attended the Drexel Institute of Technology, which later became Drexel > University, where he earned a bachelor???s degree in electrical engineering > in 1949. He took his first job at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in > Philadelphia, testing parts of radio tubes for an early commercial computer, > the Univac. In 1955, he married Evelyn Murphy, and they moved to Los Angeles, > where Mr. Baran took a job at Hughes Aircraft working on radar data > processing systems. He enrolled in night classes at the University of > California, Los Angeles. > > Mr. Baran received a master???s degree in engineering from U.C.L.A. in 1959. > Gerald Estrin, who was Mr. Baran???s adviser, said Mr. Baran was the first > student he ever had who actually went to the Patent Office in Washington to > investigate whether his master???s work, on character recognition, was > patentable. > > ???From that day on, my expectations of him changed,??? Dr. Estrin said. > ???He wasn???t just a serious student, but a young man who was looking to > have an effect on the world.??? > > In 1959, Mr. Baran left Hughes to join RAND???s computer science department. > He quickly developed an interest in the survivability of communications > systems in the event of a nuclear attack, and spent the next several years at > RAND working on a series of 13 papers ??? two of them classified ??? under > contract to the Air Force, titled, ???On Distributed Communications.??? > > About the same time that Mr. Baran had his idea, similar plans for creating > such networks were percolating in the computing community. Donald Davies of > the British National Physical Laboratory, working a continent away, had a > similar idea for dividing digital messages into chunks he called packets. > > ???In the golden era of the early 1960s, these ideas were in the air,??? said > Leonard Kleinrock, a computer scientist at U.C.L.A. who was working on > similar networking systems in the 1960s. > > Mr. Baran left RAND in 1968 to co-found the Institute for the Future, a > nonprofit research group specializing in long-range forecasting. > > Mr. Baran was also an entrepreneur. He started seven companies, five of which > eventually went public. > > In recent years, the origins of the Internet have been subject to claims and > counterclaims of precedence, and Mr. Baran was an outspoken proponent of > distributing credit widely. > > ???The Internet is really the work of a thousand people,??? he said in an > interview in 2001. > > ???The process of technological developments is like building a cathedral,??? > he said in an interview in 1990. ???Over the course of several hundred years, > new people come along and each lays down a block on top of the old > foundations, each saying, ???I built a cathedral.??? > > ???Next month another block is placed atop the previous one. Then comes along > an historian who asks, ???Well, who built the cathedral???? Peter added some > stones here, and Paul added a few more. If you are not careful you can con > yourself into believing that you did the most important part. But the reality > is that each contribution has to follow onto previous work. Everything is > tied to everything else.??? > > Mr. Baran???s wife, Evelyn, died in 2007. In addition to his son, David, of > Atherton, Calif., he is survived by three grandchildren; and his companion of > recent years, Ruth Rothman. > ----- End forwarded message -----
