9. Alan Turing's 100th Birthday: June 23rd 2012
Alan Turing is a name you should all know, but unfortunately not enough people know of him or his work. Turing was a key player at Bletchley Park and helped decipher coded German messages, drastically shortening World War II. Turing was not a one trick pony; in fact he was quite the opposite. He is also considered one of the fathers of computer science and artificial intelligence. His work still impacts on the way we use computers today. The doodle that celebrated Turings 100th birthday was a puzzle game based around a Turing Machine. A Turing Machine is a theoretical device that is can be used to represent computer algorithms at a very low level. The team of doodlers took the basic idea of the machine and created a interactive puzzle game that is not only quite complex but also introduces players to basic programming concepts and the binary language. The game itself requires players to manipulate the instructions on the tape so that when the sequence is ran it will generate a binary number. Anyone who has basic programming knowledge should find the game relatively simple but those who dont certainly seemed to struggle at first. The learning curve is steep but once you get the basic idea it becomes a lot easier, and very entertaining. The minimalistic presentation is the perfect representation of the Turing Machine and combined with the game, results in one of the most entertaining and well-developed doodles ever.