How Railroad History Shaped Internet History

If you are in for a rabbit-hole of parallels between the Internet and Railroads, definitely check out the publications of Andrew Odlyzko [1]. For a mathematician, he has accumulated some of the most fascinating history surrounding the Internet Bubble and Railway Mania. He's written several papers on Railway Mania, but one in particular [2] has so many interesting anecodotes and analyses of the failures of investors during the time that it deserves to be found bound in leather on the top of the desks of VC partners everywhere. Also to be found: critiques of Metcalf's law, contributions to the solution to Fermat's Last Theorem, as well as some interesting analysis and work on cryptography and cryptocurrency.

[1] http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/ [2] http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/hallucinations.pdf

My son is 4 years old and very into trains, and we've lots of trips to local train switchyards together. It's interesting how similar it is to the Internet: packets (shipping containers) are received from input devices (ships) at ports (ports). Routers (switchyard) send them along lines towards their destinations. The first people to be called hackers were those in the MIT model railroad club who tinkered with the electrical stuff under the table.

Perhaps this is pointing out the obvious, but railroad history is in turn influenced by natural/geological history. I took the train across the country and much of the track and all of the major stations are built along rivers and other major bodies of water.