Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau Image Courtesy Google

Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau was a Belgian physicist. He was one of the first talented people to sufficiently demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. He invented a device called the phénakistiscope in 1832, a gadget that led to the onset of cinema by creating the illusion of moving images (spinning cardboard disk that created the illusion of movement when viewed in a mirror).

Today is his birthday. Google is honoring the 218th birthday of the Belgian physicist and an early inventor of animation Antoine Ferdinand Plateau with three different animated doodles.

This morning’s Google Doodle honors Joseph Antoine’s legacy by displaying three different phénakisticope-style animations. In fact, this is the first time that a separate doodle design has been displayed between Google.com on desktop, on mobile, and on the Google app.

Desktop users are shown a spinning wheel of delicious-looking pancakes being flipped, while mobile web people see a boy blowing bubbles. The Doodle’s artist, Olivia Huynh, notes that the bubble-themed animation was inspired by Mr. Plateau’s other scientific studies into things like the physics of soap film.