The words &#8216;clever' and &#8216;death' crop up less often than &#8216;Google' in conversation. That’s according to researchers at the University of Lancaster in the UK. It took just two decades for Google to reach this cultural ubiquity. Larry Page and Sergey Brin – Google’s founders – were not, initially, interested in designing a better way to search. Their Stanford University project had a more academic motivation. Tim Harford tells the extraordinary story of a technology which might shape our access to knowledge for generations to come.
Producer: Ben Crighton 
Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon
(Image: Google logo and search box on a screen. Credit: Yui Mok/PA Wire)

Tim Harford

Google

The words &#8216;clever' and &#8216;death' crop up less often than &#8216;Google' in conversation. That’s according to researchers at the University of Lancaster in the UK. It took just two decades for Google to reach this cultural ubiquity. Larry Page and Sergey Brin – Google’s founders – were not, initially, interested in designing a better way [&hellip;]