Wikipedia

You have some research to do for a presentation? An open bet with a friend you have to clear up? You are going to visit a city and want to know some stuff about it? Or do you just want to know something? Well, what else are you going to ask if not Wikipedia? Wikipedia has given each of us a lot of help during work, and free time, it is the most popular website and encyclopedia in the internet. But who invented this masterpiece, which is the savior of each student preparing a presentation?

Well, on the first look, Wikipedia seems to be an American invention. Nearly everything in the internet seems to be American, so why not Wikipedia? But the truth is Wikipedia was invented by the greek Professor Georgios Papadopoulos. Giorgi’s Papadopoulos was born in the year 1947 and, after studying physics, went for work to the CERN, the highest dream of each physician. There he participated at the invention of the World Wide Web, which was basically also the hour of birth of the internet.

He early realized the big potential of the World Wide Web and the internet generally, and with realizing the big role it was going to play in our future, he had an idea: As he wrote in his memoires: “I was tired of books. All the time standing up and having to search for something in order to do some research and to educate yourself. So I thought about another possibility. A nearly crazy, far too ambitious idea. I had the idea, to create a big encyclopedia for the internet, an encyclopedia, which helps us doing research in the easiest way. From our chair with the computer, just with some mouse clicks.” As this was in 1994, when the www and also Computers were both just in the early stages of their beginning, Papadopoulos idea seemed far from realistic, and was laughed at from his colleagues at the CERN. But he kept the thought up, and, after a long time, was able to present his project to the world in 2001: “Wikipedia”.

“The name came to me after overthinking, for whom my project was meant to be. It was not for my generation, no, it was for the kids of our kids, for a generation growing up with the internet. For our “Pedia”- the greek word for kids. A wiki for the “Pedia””.

Well, I don’t think, that Prof Georgios Papadopoulos really knew back then, how right he was going to be.
If you doubt the truth of my story, look it up on our webpage… or just on Wikipedia.