Jules Verne's Birthday

Spotted in: Australia, Brunei, South Korea, etc.

Date: 9/2/2011

Description: Jules Verne's 183rd Birthday

Summary: Guess what, it's Google Doodle time and this time I will discuss the doodle for February 8, which is the birthday of Jules Verne.

Once again, I'm back with this review about Google Doodle and this time around Google has once again released quite an interesting doodle which features the windows of a submarine which is an adaptation of his famous novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870). Furthermore, this infamous submarine is called the Nautilus.

 Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne (February 8, 1828 - March 24, 1905) was a French author who was referred as the Father of Sci-fi due to his extraordinary work and writing in the science-fiction genre. He is also believed to be the one who pioneered the genre. Most of his work has always been ahead of his time. This is because, he wrote about air, space and underwater even before all of those are practically invented.

 20000 Leagues Under the Sea

 Around the World in 80 Days

Among his notable works are Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Around the World in Eighty Days and The Mysterious Island plus many more. His bibliography are numerous including other short stories, essays, plays and poems. However, the most famous one would be the Extraordinary Voyages which is the compilation of his 54 novels by his publisher Jules Hetzel which according toHetzel, was intended to "outline all the geographical, physical, geological, and astronomical knowledge amassed by modern science and to recount, in an entertaining and picturesque format..the history of the universe".

 20000 Leagues Under the Sea nd circa 1950

As for the doodle, it shows the portholes aboard the Nautilus. It was an adventure of deep sea exploration by the famous character, Captain Nemo together with his crew. Throughout the story, they encountered many wonders and obstacles such as giant clams, attacks by huge squid, imprisonment in ice at the South Pole, underwater forests, a war with a pack of sperm whales and the discovery of the lost continent of Atlantis.

Looking at the doodle, when you first open Google, you will see there are colorful flying fishes through the portholes which suggest the theme colour of Google logo. However only 5 fishes are there which  is first from the left is blue, red, blue again, green and red again. The yellow color is not there as the portholes itself are yellow in color which brings the color of the letter "o".

The best thing is that this doodle is interactive which you can navigate the knob on the far right to explore the underwater. As you navigate further down you will encounter some of the characters storied in the Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea novel. You will also see that the meter scale on the left turning round which suggest the depth of the sea as you go down. Interesting!