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Revision as of 23:16, 19 January 2012
Template:Two other uses A googol is the large number 10, that is, the digit 1 followed by 100 zeros:
- 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
The term was coined in 1938 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. Kasner popularized the concept in his 1940 book Mathematics and the Imagination.
Other names for googol include ten duotrigintillion on the short scale, ten thousand sexdecillion on the long scale, or ten sexdecilliard on the Peletier long scale.
A googol has no particular significance in mathematics, but is useful when comparing with other very large quantities such as the number of subatomic particles in the visible universe or the number of hypothetically possible chess moves. Edward Kasner used it to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and infinity, and in this role it is sometimes used in teaching mathematics.
In popular culture
- The company name Google is an alteration of the word "Googol" made by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as described in the book The Google Story by David A. Vise.
- Googol was the answer to the million pound question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire when Major Charles Ingram cheated to win the game.
See also
References
- Notes
- Kasner, Edward and Newman, James R. (1940). Mathematics and the Imagination. Simon and Schuster, New York. ISBN 0486417034.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Brin, S. and Page, L. (1998). The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 30(1-7):107–117
External links
| Large numbers | |||||
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| Examples in numerical order | |||||
| Expression methods |
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| Related articles (alphabetical order) | |||||