Awesomely geeky Google doodles

Perhaps one of the most enjoyable and creative Google doodle ever, you can actually record and playback tunes, right in the doodle!

This doodle celebrates inventor Emile Berliner. Among his inventions was the disc-based gramophone, so if you're still hoarding those CDs, Emile is the guy who kicked off the spinning disc format way back when.

Here's the American winner of the Doodle4Google contest. It's also the one that your gallery author voted for, so it's clear it's the right choice.

Here we have another Google doodle animation. Be sure to click all the elements in the picture.

Don't know who Richard Trevithick is, do you? He was an English steam geek who built the first, full scale, working steam locomotive. So when your kids yell "choo choo" because that's the sound that steam engines used to make (do kids yell that anymore?), you have Richard to thank.

Bonus points if you know who the first man in space was. Hint: he wasn't an American (and no, he was not James Kirk. Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was launched into space after monkeys and dogs survived. Click the link for a fun animation.

Ah, the crimes committed by high school sophomores when granted access to Robert Bunsen's creation! While much hilarity has ensued over the years in science classroom after science classroom, Bunsen did a lot more than just invent the burner.

Do you know who Erik Weisz was? Why, Harry Houdini, of course!

Although he looks like a cross between The Shadow and the Green Hornet, Will Eisner's signature comic book here was The Spirit, a crime-fighting vigilante.

If you own a DLP big screen TV, somewhere in its DNA, it has Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena to thank. Camerena was the inventor of the color wheel form of color TV. He is also instrumental in bringing television as a product and service to Mexico.

Thomas Edison would have fit in well, in our current technology climate. His declaration, "Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success," is just as valid today as it was all those years ago.

Oh, now here we have a fun, interactive doodle. Visit it and you can control your own, on-screen Nautilus.

Takayanagi Kenjiro is another of those names most Americans aren't familiar with. He built the world's first all-electronic TV receiver and is probably at least remotely responsible for the screen you're looking at right now.

Argh, matey, it be the anniversary of Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday. Now, walk that plank! Avast ye!

It's a good thing Wilhelm Röntgen named X-rays "X-rays". Otherwise, to this day, we'd be going to the doctor to get a Röntgenray.

Scooby, scooby, doooooooo!
 

Yabba, dabba, do!

They celebrated the 115th Birthday of Juan de la Cierva in Spain, but perhaps his birthday should have been celebrated around the globe. Juan de la Cierva was the inventor of the autogyro (a precursor to the helicopter) and contributed to the development of the first stable, rotary-wing aircraft.

Agatha Christie isn't exactly tech, but the doodle was so cool, we couldn't pass it up.

Ever want to know if your oldest postings online are cataloged by Google? Well, here's one of the very first images known to have been produced by man, and it wound up as a Google doodle.

Here's another of the wonderful Google doodle animations, for your time-wasting enjoyment.

Buckminsterfullerene is a molecule first generated in 1985. Because it represents the Buckminster Fuller geodesic domes, the name went fully fullerene.

Doggies, doggies, doggies, doggies! We love doggies. We particularly love Belka and Strelka and the pioneering role they had in manned space flight. What's cool is that they made it into space and returned home safely.

Nam June Paik was one of the very first video artists. He also is credited for using the term "super highway" and relating that to communications. So, well, there's that.

We love fireworks and we love Rube Goldberg devices. Just, hey, as a safety measure, don't use fireworks in your Rube Goldberg creations. You know. Safety tip.

Ah, Konrad Zuse. If you're a programmer, you should know this name. He created the first Turing complete computer back in 1941 and is widely credited for creating the very first high-level programming language.

Bet you didn't know that Japan also launches rockets. The Hayabusa probe was launched to visit a asteroid and bring back samples. A billion bad science fiction movies could begin this way.

Before we begin to describe this wonderful, animated, interactive doodle, which you can actually play, we'd like to say that PAC-MAN is a trademark and was copyrighted in 1980 by NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc. Did we mention this doodle is a full game?

You can tell by the "u" in the name (and the May 1st date), that this Labour day isn't the one we Americans celebrate at the end of our summer. Even so, this is one cool doodle!

Karl Drais invented the Laufmaschine ("running machine"), also later called the velocipede, draisine (English) or "draisienne" (French), also nicknamed the dandy horse (thanks, Wikipedia!).

It's hard to believe the Hubble's been up there 20 years, last year. But it has. Man, we're old.

Nothing makes a geek smile more than Pi (well, except may be for pie).