A common technology for connecting computers in a local network using cables, so they can share data and resources. It is widely used in homes, schools, and offices.
Coined in the 1970s by engineer Robert Metcalfe, combining *ether* (a once-hypothesized invisible substance through which light waves travel) and *net* (network). The name suggested data traveling through an invisible medium.
Ethernet was named after a scientific idea—'luminiferous ether'—that physicists later threw out as wrong. Yet the computer term survived and became a worldwide standard. It’s a rare case where a dead physics concept lives on in every office and school network.
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