So do you think the Internet is an amazing thing? A depository for all of our collective knowledge. It is. But it's not the first. The great library at Alexandria in ancient Egypt was the first time when all the the world's knowledge was actively collectively organized, and more importantly, organized. In this clip from the program Cosmos, Carl Sagan walks us through the great library that contained over 1,000,000 scrolls. When commercial ships can into port, they were searched for books. Agents were sent to travel the world, to borrow and copy scolls.
The library is no longer with us and Sagan ponders just how much information was lost, from a Mesopotamian historian's account of stories from creation to the flood, to the daily musings of Egyptian priests.
What would happen if we lost the Internet? How much would you lose? (Do you have a backup?)