The global Internet, with millions of individuals and thousands of computer networks, is changing fundamental aspects of the way scientists work. But the present, researchers agree, should be seen as prelude to a future in which an ever greater diversity of networked resources will allow scientists to approach new and currently unanswerable questions.
Today, electronic mail and an array of other data exchanges move collaborative investigations forward that might otherwise be difficult or, perhaps, impossible, researchers say. Also, sophisticated online information resources are giving scientists ready access to needed journal and other databases.
Tomorrow, researchers foresee, the Internet will offer still more to the growing number of disciplines dependent on the extensive network. It will support online, multimedia collaborations among scientists at different laboratories, for example, and sophisticated information retrieval from federated databases. The Internet of the future will also provide remote control of expensive or unique scientific instruments through ...
