I had a FEELING today would be a Google Holiday, and hooray, I was right!
Today’s Google Holiday: The 400th anniversary of Galileo’s telescope. According to this exceptionally that’s-what-she-said-y sentence in The Guardian, the telescope was “a refinement of models first devised in the Netherlands [and] Galileo’s slim, brown stick was puny even by the standards of something one might buy in a hobby shop today.” Italics mine because REALLY?! Poorly chosen wording aside, this telescope thing is responsible for much of our knowledge about the solar system. With Galileo’s slim, brown stick, the world learned that the moon is not completely smooth, that Jupiter has moons, and that the Earth just might not be the center of the universe. Obviously, the Catholic church was pissed off, but we are eternally grateful, eh? Thanks, Galileo! [Somewhat unrelated side note: my fifth-grade science fair project was all about Pluto, and now that Pluto has been demoted, I feel like such a fraud.]
What I was Googling: georgetown yates field house
Also, did you know that other people (like The Guardian) call Google Holidays “Google Doodles”? WHATEVER, PEOPLE.
And while we are just throwing side notes left and right, number seven on today’s list of hot Google Trends is “how to make shake and bake meth.” Funny, because that’s what I Googled right after “georgetown yates field house.”
[Posted by Mallory]
six words to change the world. 