Isn’t it interesting how hearing a particular song can bring back a special memory or make you feel happy or calm or pumped up?

If you've seen a movie or watched an online video lately, you owe the experience to Plateau's 1832 invention, the phenakistiscope (whose name is a rough Greek translation of "to cheat the eye).

Google Doodle celebrated what would have been the 218th birthday of Belgian physicist Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau.