A closer look
If the internet tried to send files as single, massive chunks over dedicated phone lines, a single downloaded JPEG would bankrupt you. Welsh physicist Donald Davies fixed this in 1965 by inventing packet switching. He realized that if you violently chop data into tiny, standardized 'packets' and fling them across a network to be reassembled at the destination, multiple computers can share the same cables simultaneously. Telecom monopolies hated the idea because they couldn't bill per minute, but Davies's rebellious routing logic became the fundamental nervous system of the web.
