If you leave them outside, phonebooks are pretty good at predicting the current weather. They're also pretty similar to the weather: they aren't the most exciting thing to talk about, but sometimes they're pretty important—and also potentially heavy.

Where were we? Oh yeah. The Domain Name System (DNS) works like a phonebook (minus the getting-caught-in-the-rain bit). Instead of matching names of people or companies to phone numbers, The DNS matches domain names (like Shmoop.com) with their matching IP addresses.

There's a good reason for the DNS to exist, too. Numbers are hard to remember. If you've ever tried memorizing more than three digits of pi (which is only really useful until you hit 39 digits, anyway) you know a thing or two about

• how hard it is to memorize strings of numbers.
• how weird it is to be proud of that fact.

Domain names are there to help make the internet easier to use by giving us words instead of random numbers. Computers only use numerical IP addresses, meaning that the DNS is completely for us to keep from pulling our hair out every time we want to visit a new site.

Behind the acronym, the DNS is actually a pyramid of servers that act kind-of like a pyramid of phonebooks except…without the threat of toppling over and breaking the internet.

At the top sit DNS root servers, which list the addresses for every DNS server that handle the major domains like .com, .org, .edu, and .net. Below the root, each major domain name DNS server each has a list of the other DNS servers that manage specific .coms, .orgs, .edus, or .nets. Finally, at the bottom of this hierarchy there are specific DNS servers. Those foundational servers have the databases that actually list the IP addresses for domains like Shmoop.

There you have it. DNS is basically phonebook layer cake. To quote Owen Wilson, "Wow."

(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3, Source 4)