In reality, the Internet
has a Cyclopean physical architecture, made
of a zoo of computers
and a dense mesh of
wires that girdle around
the globe. Once your
message leaves your
desk, say, in Chicago,
it’s broken down into
small pieces. And then
it hops from telephone
pole to telephone pole
until it reaches land’s
end.
Next, it journeys
through optical fibers—
each an incredibly thin
strand of glass or plastic
that serves as a pathways for information—
sealed in submarine
cables that run along
level stretches of the
seabed, carefully avoiding coral reefs, sunken
ships, marine troughs
and ridges, and fishbeds, before arriving
at its destination, say,
Beijing. The diameter
of a deep-water cable
6
is roughly that of a garden hose (0.7 inches)
while those in shallower waters are thicker,
about the cross-section
of a soda can (2.7 inches). Similarly, when
someone in Los Angles
wants to read the lifestyle section of the
leading English daily,
The Times, she keys
in its U.R.L. A request
to retrieve it goes out.
From wherever it is—
presumably, London—
it travels through the