Pål Spilling
Encyclopedia
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
pioneer and Professor Emeritus at the University of Oslo
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...
and the UNIK Graduate Center at Kjeller in Norway. He obtained his cand.real. degree in physics from the University of Oslo in 1963. In January 1964 he started on a PhD program at Utrecht University
Utrecht University
Utrecht University is a university in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe. Established March 26, 1636, it had an enrollment of 29,082 students in 2008, and employed 8,614 faculty and staff, 570 of which are full professors....
in The Netherlands, and finished his degree in summer 1968 in experimental low-energy neutron physics. Subsequently he joined the nuclear physics group at Eindhoven University of Technology
Eindhoven University of Technology
The ' is a university of technology located in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The motto of the university is: Mens agitat molem . The university was the second of its kind in the Netherlands, only Delft University of Technology existed previously. Until mid-1980 it was known as the...
in The Netherlands. In January 1972 Spilling joined the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment
Norwegian Defence Research Establishment
The Norwegian Defence Research Establishment is a research institute that conducts research and development on behalf of the Norwegian Armed Forces and provides expert advice to political and military defence leaders...
(NDRE) at Kjeller in Norway, and in 1974 started working on computer networks under the leadership of Yngvar Lundh at NDRE in collaboration with the DARPA
ARPA
Arpa and ARPA may refer to:Arpa* Arpa River in Armenia* Areni, Armenia - formerly called Arpa* Arpi, Armenia, also called Arpa* Turkish for Akhurian River in Turkey and Armenia* Italian for harp, sometimes used in scoresARPA...
-funded research program on packet switching and Internet technology in USA.
The first ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
node outside USA was established at Kjeller, Norway in June 1973 for the NDRE researchers, and by the end of July 1973, an ARPANET node was also set up in the U.K. at the University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
. Spilling visited Professor Peter Kirstein
Peter T. Kirstein
Peter Thomas Kirstein is a British computer scientist, best known for playing a significant role in the creation of the Internet.Born in Germany but brought up in England, he received a B.A. from Cambridge University in 1954, an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University ...
's research group at UCL in 1974 and there worked with Vint Cerf
Vint Cerf
Vinton Gray "Vint" Cerf is an American computer scientist, who is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with American computer scientist Bob Kahn...
, then junior assistant professor at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, on the then proposed Transmission Control Protocol
Transmission Control Protocol
The Transmission Control Protocol is one of the core protocols of the Internet Protocol Suite. TCP is one of the two original components of the suite, complementing the Internet Protocol , and therefore the entire suite is commonly referred to as TCP/IP...
where they conducted the
first TCP tests between different implementations.
During the next few years Spilling also participated in the development of the Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
and other early computer network protocols. He was in 1979/80 visiting scientist with SRI International
SRI International
SRI International , founded as Stanford Research Institute, is one of the world's largest contract research institutes. Based in Menlo Park, California, the trustees of Stanford University established it in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic development in the region. It was later...
at Stanford University, where he worked on the Packet Radio program. Spilling left NDRE in August 1982 to join the former Research Department of the Norwegian Telecommunications Administration (NTA-RD), also at Kjeller. At NTA-RD Spilling worked on communications security and the combination of Internet technology and fiber-optic transmission networks.
In 1993 Spilling became professor at Department of informatics, University of Oslo and UNIK
UNIK
The University Graduate Center is a research foundation at Kjeller in Norway. UNIK has four focus areas* ,* Electronics and Photonics* Cybernetics and Industrial Mathematics* Energy and the Environment...
, the University Graduate Center at Kjeller. Pål Spilling is internationally recognised for his role in the development of the Internet. His name is engraved in a bronze plaque roll of honour of Internet pioneers at Stanford University.