How the Internet works

The World Science Festival created this short video explainer as a setup to Internet Everywhere: The Future of History's Most Disruptive Technology, a sold-out program featuring Internet pioneer Vint Cerf of Google, MIT's Neil Gershenfeld, lawyer and Internet advocate Elizabeth Stark and Alex Wright, director of user experience at The New York Times.

The video lets you ride shotgun with a packet of data—one of trillions involved in the trillions of Internet interactions that happen every second. Look deep beneath the surface of the most basic Internet transaction, and follow the packet as it flows from your fingertips, through circuits, wires, and cables, to a host server, and then back again, all in less than a second.


WorldSciFest