African Nigeria born Philip Emeagwali invented the internet






If you are reading this on your phone, tablet or computer – Akure, Nigeria born Philip Emeagwali made that possible.

Philip Emeagwali figured out how to combine multiple computers into what we now know as the internet. It’s just that simple.

Time Magazine, in an article back 2007 (link is a few paragraphs below), admits that Emeagwali alone came up with the formula to allow many computers to communicate to each other at the same time. Which is basically the internet as we know it.

“The Internet as we know it today did not cross my mind,” Emeagwali told TIME. “I was hypothesizing a planetary-sized supercomputer and, broadly speaking, my focus was on how the present creates the future and how our image of the future inspires the present.” ~ from the Time article

As you read this article and research further, you will see that this Igbo (Hebrew) from Biafra Nigeria arrived at his place in history, at least in part, on his study of nature, specifically bees. Emeagwali saw an inherent efficiency in the way bees construct and work with honeycomb and determined computers that emulate this process could be the most efficient and powerful. In 1989, emulating the bees’ honeycomb construction, Emeagwali used 65,000 processors to invent the world’s fastest computer, which performs computations at 3.1 billion calculations per second. ~ http://www.black-inventor.com/dr-phil…

Many sites will try very hard to down play him, but when you look at the sources and facts… it is pretty clear.

Just as when crediting Thomas Edison for inventing the light bulb, nobody says “well Ben Franklin invented electricity..”, it is just that simple when you read up on Emeagwali and his invention of the internet.

So it is incorrect to begin an article on Emeagwali and the internet by saying “…computers were sending signals to each other as early as the 1950s.” ~ Time Magazine

Which, in my opinion, minimizes the credit he deserves for his hard work on something that absolutely changed the world.

Because those computers could not all talk to each other simultaneously. Philip Emeagwali’s formula made that possible. This is the “internet”.

He even coined the name internet and explains why he called it so.
~ http://www.emeagwali.com/biography/Ph…

But Time magazine did go on to say:

“…the Web owes much of its existence to Philip Emeagwali, a math whiz who came up with the formula for allowing a large number of computers to communicate at once.” ~ Time Magazine

Read the entire Time Magazine article here http://content.time.com/time/specials…

For earning a spot in the history of computing, the Nigerian postal service has issued a commemorative set of stamps in 50-naira (US$0.39) and 150-naira (US$1.17) denominations. Both stamps went on sale on January 18, 2006, at the dedication and the “First Day of Issue” ceremony in Abuja, Nigeria
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Do your own research, but as for the internet…and how you will most likely do your research….he did that!

1 Comment

  1. Simply great. Hard work pays. Inspiration plus perspiration creates the Genius. Kudos to this son of Africa. More inventions please.

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