Without the American chemist’s “Scoville organoleptic test” you wouldn’t have a way of measuring how ridiculously hot a Trinidad Moruga is (one of the hottest in world). The doodle team thought his work in this field-and the development of his eponymous Scoville Scale-deserved some recognition.
Advertisement
The striking, scientist-looking man featuring on the Google Doodle is Wilbur Scoville and it would have been his 151th birthday today.
People often burn their tongues when they eat any spicy food or pepper.
The mini game was created by Olivia Huynh in collaboration with artist Brian Kaas and engineers Corrie Scalisi, Tom Tabanao, Jordan Thompson, Kris Hom and Jk Kafalas. In 1912, Wilbur developed the scale in order to measure the hotness of chilli pepper and hot sauce.
At the beginning of each level, you will see Scoville popping a pepper into his mouth to measure the heat content. On clicking the fiery play button the Google doodle then starts an interactive session giving you the chance to play a game to know the heat properties of bell pepper jalapeno pepper and cayenne pepper.
Once an animated Scoville has tasted a pepper, it’s up to you – as a fearless ice cream – to freeze the pepper by accurately hitting a moving scale at the bottom of the screen.
Advertisement
“Spiciness is somewhat of a universal, comical experience, which I think opened the door for us to do something we usually might not be able to, like a fighting game”, says Huynh. As the game proceeds, it gets hard to use the slider and aim the ice-cream at the pepper. Or in layman’s terms from Bell Pepper to Carolina Reaper.
