Why does http:// contain two slashes and file:/// three in a browser navigation bar?

Question

Why does http:// contain two slashes—is that just a standard for a URL, or does it have any logical meaning? And why does file:/// contain three slashe

Answer 1

As mentioned in this superuser post:

The complete syntax is file://host/path.

If the host is localhost, it can be omitted, resulting in file:///path.

In other words, referring to files in your computer is just like referring to files in localhost.