Google Doodle honors Wilbur Scoville, the creator of the Scoville scale that measures the spicy heat of chili peppers.
A Google Doodle is a special but temporary alteration to the Google logo on the search engine's homepage. Google Doodle is mainly intended to celebrate events, people, achievements and holidays. On Jan. 22, Google created a Google Doodle to commemorate the birthday of Wilbur Scoville.
"Before Wilbur Scoville, however, no one knew how to measure a pepper's 'heat.' The doodle team thought his work in this field - and the development of his eponymous Scoville Scale - deserved some recognition," says Google.
The Google Doodle for Jan. 22 gives users an opportunity to know about some chili peppers and also play a short game. According to Google, Olivia Huynh - a Doodler - had been thinking of Scoville and his test since summer 2015.
When visitors on Google's homepage click on the Doodle it shows a cartoon figure of Scoville eating a pepper followed by a hand offering him ice cream. The Doodle shows an image of a pepper and then the game begins. Users have to click the mouse at the correct point on a slide bar and fire ice cream at the opponent pepper(s). The game gets more difficult as hotter peppers arrive.
The Scoville scale measures the concentration of capsaicin which gives hotness to chillies. Scoville invented the test in 1912 and it still remains the barometer of pepper hotness. The Scoville heat unit (SHU) rating starts at zero and can reach up to 16 million depending on the hotness of the peppers.
PepperHeadsForLife has compiled a list of how different types of peppers and chemicals score on the SHU ratings. The Carolina Reaper and the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion are around the 2 million mark on the SHU rating.
The Bhut Jolokia was the first pepper to pass the 1 million SHU rating. The Cayenne pepper has an SHU rating of 50,000.
Google Doodles are normally fun and informative. However, some Google Doodles have also triggered debate. The Nov. 11, 2015 Google Doodle celebrated Veterans Day, and showed seven veterans of different races from different military branches.
Many observers criticized that the Google Doodle was very diverse. Some people said that the Doodle should depict more White people as more Whites died in America's wars.
While six veterans in the Doodle appeared to be in proper uniform, only one appeared in a red t-shirt and a vest, which also attracted criticism.
