Search-engine giant Google is celebrating John Venn's birthday today. Venn invented the Venn diagram and in honor of this beautiful feat, Google has created a new interactive Google doodle. Now available on the site, the doodle allows you to make your own interactive diagrams.
Venn, who was born in 1834, was both a logician and mathematician. Venn diagrams indicate correlations between things and are often used in probability, statistics, linguistics and computer science. The diagram itself consists of two separate circles that represent a specific topic. Those circles overlap each other. The overlapped area shows the correlation between the two original topics.
For example, in the Google doodle, you may choose "transport" for one circle and "space" for the other circle to get "transport in space," which shows an image in the center of the combined circles of a spacecraft console. Another example involves choosing "mammals" for the first circle and "tiny" for the second circle, which results in an image of a mouse in the area where the two circles overlap.
The Google doodle lets you choose from several categories to create your own diagram and gives you a cute cartoon version of Venn displaying the correlation.
If you're a fan of astronaut Chris Hadfield, be sure to combine "Musical" with "In Space."
"Venn diagrams in general are naturally pretty fun," says Google's Mike Dutton. "So as far as finding an idea for an interactive doodle, Venn was a no-brainer."
The Venn Google doodle was specifically designed with children in mind. It's simple, but also designed in an educational way to explain how Venn diagrams worked. This, in turn, affected the graphical style of the doodle.
"The specific visual style was initially based on old math and science textbooks," says Dutton. "However, as the project developed I realized it would be better served with a fresh vibrant look that could easily be animated."
Google's Venn diagram doodle will be available today for 24 hours. After that, the company will add it to their doodle archives.
