The Strings Between The Number Machines

A number machine is a machine that works with numbers very quickly. The strings between the number machines are what you have when most of the number machines in all countries are connected, and can say things to each other. You are using these strings now.

How it works

When one number machine needs to give words or pictures to another machine far from it, it cuts them into very many small pieces. Each piece is marked with the place it needs to go to. The pieces go from machine to machine, each time nearer, and at the end the pieces are put back into one thing, like before.

No one machine controls all this, and people wanted it like this. The strings were first paid for by a big country's soldiers. The soldiers wanted this: if some machines or strings were damaged, the pieces could go through other strings, and the machines could say things to each other like before.

What people use it for

At first, only people who learned about number machines used the strings. Now people use them to read, to buy things, to look at moving pictures, to play games, and most of all, to say things to each other — and to be angry at each other, at times about no thing at all.

The part you look at

Most people do not see the strings. They see something like books: groups of words and pictures, connected to other groups of words and pictures. You touch some words in one of these books, and now you are inside another book.

A man who learned about atoms made this about three times ten years before now, because he wanted people who learn about things to give their papers to each other more easily. He did not ask for money for it: he gave it to all people, for no money. Maybe this is one of the most beautiful things a person has done.