Today’s Google doodle is composed of interactive petri dishes in celebration of Julius Petri’s 161st birthday!
To me, there’s something really funny about the fact that a guy took a round dish with a lid, literally the most obvious and utilitarian thing you could think of to grow bacteria in, and named it after himself (or we named it after him, perhaps).
Imagine if a cup were called a “Smith vessel” or if a paper bag were called a “Wilson sack”. “Hey! Can I have a Smith vessel of coffee?”
But on the other hand, science is regularly a business of serendipity, scratching away to reveal the layer just beyond the obvious, and being ready in the starting blocks to run when luck drops something in your lap.
Just be sure to name it after yourself when that happens.