The 11th march 2013 we celebrate Douglas Adams’ 61st Birthday. Google pays tribute to the man with one of its famous doodles. Thanks Big G ! 😉

The doodle was created by Sophia Foster-Dimino. She explains how she worked on this doodle on the doodles’ site where all the doodles are archived. So you can still see it here and read Sophia explanations and homage to DNA .

Google founders love Hitchhiker. When you ask google.com what is “The answer to life, the universe and everything”, it still answers 42.

And Eric Schmidt, executive chairman and former CEO of Google, told last year : “Think back to Star Trek, or my favourite, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Much of what those writers imagined is now possible,” Schmidt said.

“Translating… voice recognition, electronic books. The people who predict that intelligent robots, virtual reality or self-driving cars will soon be commonplace are right,” he continued.

“Governments will be able to spot the economic makings of a crisis before they happen and doctors will be able to accurately predict the outbreak of disease before anyone feels it.”

Douglas Adams died 12 years ago and Google’s doodle also makes us remember how young he was when he died. 49 years old, damn it ! It was such a shock for so many fans in the universe. “Life, don’t talk to me about life” !

Douglas Adams was a comic genius, author of the celebrated “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series (which started in 1978 as a radio series but which also spanned through five books, a six episodes BBC TV series, several plays, a movie, a computer game,…),  but also of two Dirk Gently books (two books plus an unfinished one, a famous play called “Dirk”, two radio series and a four episodes BBC TV series), a dictionary about names that should exist (“The Meaning of Liff”)  and a remarkable book about endangered species “Last Chance to See”(book, radio series, computer software, TV documentary series).

He was also a radical atheist, a rock addict (who owned many left hand guitars and played on stage with Pink Floyd for his 42nd Birthday).

For more informations about Douglas Adams and his work, you can read my website www.douglasadams.eu