2026-02-04 10:08:54 From Bob Primak to Everyone:
	ip address is more about the location of the computer in a network, not its identity. That latter would be the computer's MAC Address.
2026-02-04 10:22:08 From Seth to Everyone:
	Not exactly.  The MAC address and the IP address are just identifiers at different layers of the network stack.  The video about the OSI stack will explain this more.
2026-02-04 10:26:47 From David Duff to Everyone:
	in my experience, routers don't "learn" what subnets they are connected to.   (different from switches, for example).
2026-02-04 10:28:32 From Seth to Everyone:
	This may be the case in your home, but in a larger network, routers use various protocols like BGP (border gateway protocol) to learn routes.  It would be impossible to scale the configuration of large networks if the admin had to manually maintain static routing tables.
2026-02-04 10:29:23 From David Duff to Everyone:
	ok - i guess that is a broader definition of "learn" - in that case, i agree.
2026-02-04 10:29:23 From Seth to Everyone:
	I think RIP is another one.  It is safe, though, to ignore dynamic routing protocols unless you are a network admin :-)
2026-02-04 10:29:57 From Seth to Everyone:
	in this context, the routers are discovering the various networks and dynamically creating routes in the routing tables to determine optimal paths, redundancy, etc.