The character arc of Tim Berners-Lee
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 8 June 1955 in London to two mathematicians who had both worked on the first commercially built computer. Between then and now sit a childhood learning electronics from a model railway, a first in physics from Oxford in 1976, a computer built out of an old television, six months as a contractor at CERN in 1980 and a prototype called Enquire, three years running the technical side of a small company in Dorset, a return to CERN in 1984, a proposal written in March 1989 and called vague but exciting, the first browser and the first server, and a knighthood. The line below draws the story so far, in order.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who is Tim Berners-Lee?
His manager wrote vague but exciting. Then he built it.
His parents, Mary Lee Berners-Lee and Conway Berners-Lee, were both mathematicians from Birmingham who worked on the Ferranti Mark 1, the first commercially built computer. He was a keen trainspotter, and learned electronics from tinkering with a model railway, which is the least romantic and most reliable engineering education there is. He went to Sheen Mount Primary and then Emanuel School from 1969 to 1973, and took a first in physics from The Queen College, Oxford in 1976, where he built a computer out of an old television.
He worked as an independent contractor at CERN from June to December 1980. While there he proposed a project based on hypertext, to help researchers share and update information, and built a prototype to demonstrate it, called Enquire. Then he left. He went to a small company in Bournemouth and ran its technical side for three years, working on a real-time remote procedure call, which gave him experience in computer networking. He returned to CERN as a fellow in 1984.
In 1989 CERN was the largest internet node in Europe, and he saw the opportunity to join hypertext to the internet. His own account of what happened next is worth quoting against every version of the story that makes it a flash of genius. Creating the web, he said, was really an act of desperation, because the situation without it was very difficult when he was working at CERN. Most of the technology involved, the hypertext, the internet, multifont text objects, had all been designed already. He just had to put them together. It was a step of generalising, going to a higher level of abstraction, thinking about all the documentation systems out there as possibly part of one larger imaginary system.
He wrote the proposal in March 1989 and sent it round again in 1990. His manager, Mike Sendall, accepted it with the words vague, but exciting. Robert Cailliau had independently proposed a hypertext system at CERN and joined him as a partner in getting it off the ground. Berners-Lee designed and built the first web browser, which also worked as an editor, and the first web server. In mid-November 1989 he implemented the first successful communication between an HTTP client and a server over the internet.
He founded the World Wide Web Consortium and is its emeritus director, co-founded the World Wide Web Foundation with Rosemary Leith, and is a founder and president of the Open Data Institute. He held the 3Com founder chair at the MIT computer science laboratory, is a professorial research fellow at Oxford and professor emeritus at MIT, and was elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009 and a trustee of the Ford Foundation in 2011. He was knighted in 2004, named in Time list of the hundred most important people of the twentieth century, and received the 2016 Turing Award for inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the web to scale.
The moments
Tim Berners-Lee's timeline.
The 1950s
Born to two programmers
Everyday. Both his parents worked on the first commercial computer.
The 1960s
Electronics from a model railway
Milestone, and it changed everything. He learned circuits by fixing a train set.
The 1970s
A first in physics
Milestone, and it changed his direction. A first, and a computer built from a television set.
The 1980s
Six months at CERN
Milestone, and it changed everything. A six month contract, and the first version of the idea.
Three years in Dorset
Milestone, and it changed his direction. He left, and learned networking at a small company.
Back to CERN
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Four years away, and then back.
Live with it, or write the proposal
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: write it down and send it, taken, or work around the problem. His manager wrote vague but exciting on it, and by mid-November there was a browser, a server and the first page.
He writes the proposal
Milestone, and it changed everything. One document, twelve pages, in March 1989.
An act of desperation
Milestone, and it changed everything. His own account, and it is not a story about genius.
The first client and server
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first time a browser asked a server for a page.
The 1990s
Vague, but exciting
Milestone, and it changed everything. The most consequential three words a manager ever wrote.
The consortium
Milestone, and it changed everything. He built the body that keeps the standards open.
The 2000s
A knighthood
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Knighted for it, fifteen years after the proposal.
The National Academy
Milestone. Elected by the academy of another country.
The 2010s
The Turing Award
Milestone, and it changed everything. Computing highest honour, for four inventions at once.
The Open Data Institute
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Still building institutions rather than products.
The consortium he founded still runs the standards, and the page you are reading uses every one of the four things he made. What he set moving is best described in his own words: almost all of it already existed, and somebody had to be annoyed enough to put it together.
Your turn
Every line draws a unique story.
His best known work came out of an ordinary frustration at work, which is where most useful things start. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.
Tim Berners-Lee: frequently asked questions
What people ask about his line.
What is Tim Berners-Lee's character arc?
When did Tim Berners-Lee invent the web?
What did Tim Berners-Lee say about inventing the web?
What did Tim Berners-Lee build?
What was Enquire by Tim Berners-Lee?
What awards has Tim Berners-Lee received?
Where does this timeline of Tim Berners-Lee's life come from?
More character arcs
Lives that rhyme with his.
Sources
- Tim Berners-Lee, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
- His information management proposal of 12 March 1989, and its 1990 redistribution.
- His own account of the web as an act of desperation, as quoted there.
- The 2016 Turing Award citation.