Internet Basics: Email is Like Cross Pollination by Bees

Ever wonder how flowers get fertilized without being able to move around? Some flowers can only be fertilized by pollen from another flower. This process is called cross-pollination. Amazingly, these flowers get the pollen they need from other flowers without having to move an inch. How? Bees bring the pollen.

The bees crawl around in one flower and get covered with that flower’s pollen. Then the bees fly to other flowers and crawl around in them, leaving behind the pollen, fertilizing the other flowers in the process.

The one flower “sends” the pollen. The other receives the pollen. Neither moves anywhere.

That’s what email is like.

One person sends something (a message) and the other person receives it, while neither person had to move at all. In the case of email, the thing that’s sent is carried by a specific part of the Internet that delivers email messages.

But email is slightly different than the bee example in that the message doesn’t go directly from one person to the other. Instead, it stops in the middle at a server, which is just a computer hooked up to the Internet. The message waits there until the other person is ready to receive it. So it’s as if the bee gets the pollen, then waits by the lily pond until the second flower says it’s ready for the pollen.

Another difference is that unlike with the bees, using email doesn’t lead to getting fertilized – but of course that depends on what type of emails you’re sending.

And that’s why email is like cross-pollination by bees.