The Birth of the Internet

(electronic music)

- [Narrator] Computer
scientist Leonard Kleinrock

arrived at UCLA in 1963

fresh from receiving his PhD from MIT.

Kleinrock's research
was on data networking

and packet switching.

- Well, the underlying
technology of the internet

is packet switching.

That's the way your messages,
your videos, your voice,

your pictures, your data are transmitted

in little chunks called packets.

So a long messages broken
up into smaller packets,

each packet is addressed
and sent through the network

like a bunch of postcards
carrying a long letter

independently making their
way through the network

arriving at the other end,
being put back together again

and delivered to you as an entity,

as a longer message.

- [Narrator] In the late 1960s

the Advanced Research Project Agency

decided that UCLA under
Kleinrock's leadership

would become the first
node of the ARPANET,

a fledgling network of computers connected

to various research
universities across the country.

The first switch known as an
interface message processor

arrived on Labor Day weekend, 1969.

The switch was connected
to a host computer at UCLA

on September 2nd.

- You might say at September 2nd

that infant internet, that one node

took its first breath of
life in that it was born

and met the outside world

which was in the form of
our time-shared computer.

But one node does not make a network.

- [Narrator] One month later,

a second switch was delivered to

Stanford Research Institute.

Then on October 29th, 1969,

right here at UCLA on the
3rd floor of Boelter Hall

Kleinrock's group attempted
to log into the node

at Stanford Research Institute.

This would be the first
message sent on the internet.

- Now to login we have to type L-O-G

and the remote computer is smart enough

to know what we're trying to do.

It types the I-N for us.

So I had Charlie Klein
at my end and Mr. Duval

at the other end, programmers,

and instructed Charlie
to type in the L-O-G

and he had a telephone
connection with Duval.

So Charlie typed L, he said,

"Did you get the L?"

"Yep, got the L."

Typed the O, "Got the O?"

"Got the O."

Typed the G, "Get the G?"

(clap hands)
Crash!

The SRI computer crashed.

So the first message ever
on the internet was lo.

As in, lo and behold.

We didn't plan it but we
could not have come up with

a better message.

Short, prophetic, planning
what the future would be.

- [Narrator] In the early
days of the internet.

Kleinrock directed the
Network Measurement Center

at UCLA Engineering,

designed to test, measure and stress

the limits of the emerging network.

- We tried to break the network.

We sent lots of traffic
to individual sites.

We sucked up a lot of traffic ourselves.

We basically tried to send
strange messages, heavy messages,

to test the outer envelope of the network.

That was our job.

And we did.

We found that just what
the network was capable of,

where it would break,

what we would need to
extend its capabilities.

- [Narrator] In 45 years at UCLA,

Leonard Kleinrock has
graduated 47 PhD students

and more are still in the pipeline.

- Getting a PhD is learning
how to do research.

And so, as their mentor,
as their supervisor

it's my responsibility
to make sure they have

the right approach to doing research.

We must teach our students

to take a longterm view on research,

not a short-term, narrow view,

but a longterm, broad view, innovative,

dangerous and exciting.

That's the kind of mentality
you want to carry on

generation after generation.

- [Narrator] For his pioneering work

on the technological
foundation of the internet

and for mentoring generations

of outstanding computer scientists,

Leonard Kleinrock received
the National Medal of Science

in September, 2008.

The metal is the nation's
highest scientific honor.

For more than 40 years, UCLA
professor Leonard Kleinrock

has been a leader, an innovator,
a scholar and a mentor

in the computer science field.

His pioneering internet
work at UCLA Engineering

has a global reach and will
have a long-lasting impact.

The UCLA Henry Samueli
School of Engineering

and Applied Science, the
birthplace of the internet.

(electronic music ends)