Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, says its size and power over society have become so great that we no longer fully comprehend how it works (Image: Catrina Genovese / WireImage)

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee wants to put the web under the microscope to investigate how it changes our behaviour. Paul Marks asked him what he hopes to achieve

Why did you decide to subject the web itself to scientific scrutiny?

Web science is already happening. People are studying the effect of the web within disciplines like social science, economics, psychology and law. Our Web Science …