Google Easter Eggs – how many can you name from this infographic? #googlesolitaire

Last night, Google launched two new easter eggs into their Search Results – adding Tic Tac Toe and Solitaire as playable games. Google has always loved delighting their users, adding a sense of whimsy to their products. Now it’s time to get serious, because Google has hidden more easter eggs in search and they’ve given us this handy graphic to narrow some down.

The graphic is printed on a pack of cards – not a normal set of cards, there’s a suit printed on each one, but no number or card identifier, just a clever clue you have to solve – much like the graphic on the back of the cards. As you can see, there’s a lot packed in there and we’ve been busy trying to figure out a lot of the easter eggs, but see if you can help solve some we can’t.

Starting from the top:

• Blue Moon – Do a Google search for ‘Once in a Blue Moon‘ and you get the answer: once in a blue moon = 1.16699016 × 10-8 hertz. What does that mean? It seems it’s the cycle time for a Blue Moon (an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year) to come around.
• 42 – We miss you Mr Adams. Do a search for ‘The meaning of life, the universe and everything‘ and you get the answer…42. Now if only we knew the right question, right Deep Thought?
• Zerg Rush (Thanks Leo) – For Starcraft fans, then typing in a Google search for ‘zerg rush‘ will start a game on desktop. A bunch of ‘O’s come floating down the screen attacking the search results. If you click on the O you can stop it, if you get them all they form up into ‘GG’ for Good Game – but I’ve never been able to do this.
• Blink html – When you search ‘Blink HTML‘ all the blink and html words in the search results blink
• Roll a Dice – Have you ever lost a dice when trying to play a board game? Google ‘Roll a dice‘ and Google will give you the results of rolling a six-sided die
• 0.8° – not too sure on this one, it’s likely going to be something to do with graphing.
• What does the foxOwl say? – if you’ve ever wondered what an animal sounds like, just Google it. The answer will come up with a sound file that plays telling you audibly what it sounds like. Go on, Google ‘What does an Owl say‘? You’ll find a lot of other animal sounds in there as well.
• Nerd Valentine – want to send a super nerdy valentine to your significant other? Get them to Google Search this formula ‘sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5‘ Google will actually graph that into a heart for you….awwwww.
• It’s a me…Mario – For the 30th anniversary of the Mario Bros video game, Google added a neat easter egg to the knowledge graph entry for Mario Bros. Google ‘Super Mario Bros.‘ and you can then click on the box with a question mark in it in the Knowledge Graph to get 200 points/coins and the sound from the game. Click the box 100 times and you get the extra life sound.
• Arkanoid! – If You’re a fan of Atari’s classic game Breakout, then search ‘Atari Breakout‘ while you’re in Image Search and you can play the game on your browser.
• Unicorn – If you Google ‘the number of horns on a unicorn‘ the calculator pops up with the answer: The number of horns on a Unicorn = 1.
• Flip a Coin – Stuck on a decision? Google ‘Flip a coin‘ and let Google decide for you
• Noughts and Crosses – You should have seen this last night. Search Google for ‘Tic Tac Toe‘ or ‘Noughts and Crosses‘ and you can play this classic game in Easy, Medium or Impossible levels of playability in your Google Search Results.
• Pacman – For the 30th anniversary of Pacman, Google coded a special Google Doodle for the front search page. Hours of productivity have been lost to this doodle, and you can still play it by searching ‘Pacman‘
• Three Dog Night – If you’re familiar with the song written by Harry Nilsson and made famous by Three Dog Night, then you may have searched ‘what is the loneliest number‘ and view the result on the Google Calculator.
• Six degrees of Kevin Bacon – Have you ever played this game? It’s finding out how many steps it takes to link an actor with Kevin Bacon. Google has made this easy by letting you Google search ‘Bacon Number’ and an actors name – for example ‘Bacon Number Karl Urban‘.
• Anagram – Do a search for ‘Anagram‘ and Google’s famous ‘Did you Mean?’ suggests ‘nag a ram’ itself an anagram of well, anagram. You can also go further by asking it to ‘Define Anagram‘ and you get Did you mean: Nerd Fame Again.
• Rainbows – If you’ve ever searched for a term associated with the LGBTQI community around Mardi Gras – you’ll be familiar with the fabulous rainbow theme that adorns the results. You can see a whole lot more about it here.
• Just a little bit of history repeating itself – Have you ever wondered what Google looked like when it launched back in 1998? Just Google ‘Google in 1998‘.
• Askew – If you search the word ‘Askew‘ you’ll get a jaunty slant to your Google search
• Bletchley Park – home of the British Codebreakers during World War 2. Enter ‘Bletchley Park‘ into Google search and watch the name get decoded in the knowledge graph.
• Rolling Barrel – If you’re a flight sim fan, you’ll love doing barrel rolls, want to barrel roll your search? Simply search ‘Do a barrel roll‘ to watch your results page spin over
• 100 BPM – Are you a musician? Need a metronome? Then you can get one in your search results, just search ‘Metronome‘, select your pace and you’re away.

That’s as far as I can tell, all the easter eggs but knowing Google there’s probably an easter egg inside the easter eggs.

Now, if you want a look at the other side of the playing cards that Google sent, here you go: