Google is basically the front door to the internet, but honestly, most of us just use it to settle bets about movie actors or find a decent pizza place nearby. It's a tool. We treat it like a hammer. But if you start poking around the search bar with specific phrases, you realize the engineers at Mountain View have been hiding a massive digital playground right under our noses for decades. There are cool things to look up on Google that range from time-wasting mini-games to legitimate scientific tools that use NASA data.
You’ve probably heard of "do a barrel roll." It’s the classic. You type it in, the screen spins, and for a split second, you feel like a 90s kid playing Star Fox. But that’s just the surface level.
The Nostalgia Trip: When Google Becomes an Arcade
If you're bored at work, there are ways to turn your browser into a 1980s arcade cabinet without downloading a single file. Search for Atari Breakout.
Wait.
Actually, Google changed how this works recently. It used to trigger automatically in Image Search, but now you usually have to click through the "Elgoog" mirror or find the dedicated Doodle archive. It’s still there, though. You use your mouse to slide a bar back and forth, bouncing a ball to destroy blocks made of search result thumbnails. It’s weirdly satisfying.
Then there’s Zerg Rush. This one is a direct nod to Blizzard’s Starcraft. Small "o" characters start falling from the top of the screen and eating your search results. If you don't click them fast enough to "kill" them, your entire page disappears into a blank white void. It’s stressful. It’s also a great way to realize how much time you’re actually wasting when you should be finishing that spreadsheet.
Speaking of games, you can just type Pac-Man or Snake directly into the bar. A playable widget pops up instantly. The Snake game is actually surprisingly polished—you can change the skins and the fruit.
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Digital History and Hidden Visual Gags
Sometimes the cool things to look up on Google aren't games at all, but "Easter eggs" that mess with the UI.
Ever tried searching for askew?
Do it. The entire page tilts a few degrees to the right. It’s just enough to make you think your monitor is broken or you’re having a balance issue. It’s a subtle, nerdy joke that’s been around for years.
If you’re a fan of cult classic British sci-fi, search for The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Google’s calculator will pop up with the number 42. It’s a tribute to Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Why Does Google Do This?
It’s mostly about brand personality. In the early 2000s, Google’s motto was "Don't Be Evil," and part of that culture involved engineers spending "20% time" on passion projects. Many of these quirks were born in those hours. They aren't there to help you find a job or buy a toaster; they're there because some coder thought it would be funny if the "Recursion" search result asked you: "Did you mean: recursion?"
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(If you click it, it just reloads the same page. Forever.)
High-Level Tools You Didn’t Know Existed
Beyond the jokes, there are some genuinely powerful features that go way beyond a standard search query.
- Google Sky: You don't just have to look at maps of your neighborhood. If you search for Google Sky, you can browse through a celestial map using imagery from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Digitized Sky Survey, and the Hubble Space Telescope. You can see the birth of stars and distant galaxies.
- The Mars and Moon Viewers: Similar to Sky, you can look up Google Mars or Google Moon. These aren't just low-res photos; they are interactive 3D globes based on satellite data. You can see exactly where the Apollo missions landed.
- Google Books Ngram Viewer: This is a researcher's dream. It lets you search for specific keywords across millions of books published between 1500 and the present day. You can see a graph of how often "computer" was mentioned in the 1800s versus now. It's a fascinating look at the evolution of language and human interest.
Finding the Weird Side of Search
If you want to see something truly bizarre, look up Thanos (though this one is occasionally cycled out of the active results). When it's active, clicking the Infinity Gauntlet in the knowledge panel makes half the search results turn to dust.
There’s also the Sonic the Hedgehog easter egg. Look him up, and you’ll see a small 16-bit Sonic in the info box on the right. If you click him, he spins. If you click him enough times, he transforms into Super Sonic. It’s a small touch, but for a Sega fan, it’s a gold mine.
How to Use Google Like a Power User
Most people don't realize that Google is also a massive utility belt. You don't need a converter app or a calculator app.
- Timer/Stopwatch: Just type "set timer for 10 minutes" into the search bar. A loud alarm will go off when it's done.
- Color Picker: Type "color picker" and you get a full Hex/RGB UI. This is a lifesaver for web designers or anyone trying to match a paint color.
- Animal Sounds: Look up "what sound does a zebra make" and Google will play a high-quality recording.
- Metronome: Musicians can just type "metronome" to get a steady beat at any BPM.
The Science of the "Doodle"
We see them every day, but the Google Doodles are some of the most complex cool things to look up on Google. They started in 1998 when founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin played with the logo to show they were at the Burning Man festival.
Now, there is a dedicated team of "Doodlers."
The 2011 Les Paul doodle allowed people to actually record and share songs played on a virtual guitar. The 2017 "Magic Cat Academy" Halloween game became an internet sensation. You can find all of these in the Google Doodle Archive. It’s a massive library of interactive art and mini-games that tracks the last 25 years of internet culture.
A Quick Reality Check on Search Accuracy
While these tricks are fun, search has changed. With the rise of AI-generated content and "SGE" (Search Generative Experience), finding the classic Easter eggs can sometimes be harder because the AI tries to give you a summary instead of the "joke" result. If a trick doesn't work, try clicking the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button or looking for the archive versions.
Practical Steps for Your Next Search
If you want to explore the deeper side of the web, don't just stop at the fun visual tricks. Use the search operators that the pros use.
- Use site:reddit.com [your topic] to find real human discussions instead of SEO-optimized articles.
- Use filetype:pdf [topic] to find actual documents, white papers, or free manuals.
- Use "exact phrase in quotes" to find specific lyrics or quotes that keep escaping you.
The "cool" part of Google isn't just that it can flip the screen upside down. It's that it contains the largest index of human knowledge ever assembled. Whether you're using it to play Pac-Man or to track the movement of stars via Google Sky, the browser is only as boring as the questions you ask it.
Try searching for Bletchley Park and watch the knowledge panel "decode" the name in real-time. It’s a nod to the codebreakers of WWII. Then, look up Conway's Game of Life. On the right side of your desktop screen, you’ll see a cellular automaton simulation start to grow and evolve, living and dying based on its own mathematical rules. It’s beautiful, it’s nerdy, and it’s exactly why we still love poking around the search bar.
To see these in action right now, start by typing Google Gravity and hitting "I'm Feeling Lucky." It will literally shatter your search page into a heap of physics-based debris that you can toss around with your cursor. From there, explore the Google Arts & Culture experiments, which use your webcam to match your face to famous museum paintings. The depth of these features is genuinely staggering when you stop looking for answers and start looking for experiences.