My first book in The Idea Miners series, The Lost Lake Dig, ended with the line “Ideas define us: our past, our present, and most importantly, our future.“

In today’s world of instant communications, it’s possible, like no time before, to watch as new ideas evolve and shape our future. But it can also be enlightening to look back and see how past ideas have set the groundwork.

As a computer science major in college, many years ago, I remember researching the developing internet architecture—t...