Google Doodle Features Animation

Posted by Kevin O'Hara
Monday, January 4th, 2010
design, google, logo | Permalink

Father of Gravity Makes Doodle Move

In honor of Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday, Google introduces the first Doodle to use animation. It seems fitting that Google used JavaScript instead of Flash or an Animated GIF to produce the effect. That would have been like cheating. Instead, they created a simple equation to help “explain” why the apple falls. Just as Newton helped explain the Universal Law of Gravitation through a calculus-like method of geometrical analysis, Google uses an interval function to make the apple drop.

Sir Isaac Newton, an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian is generally regarded as one of the most influential scientists in history. I’m not sure how he found the time to do all of that, but he he also found time to write the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). One of the most influential books in scientific history.