Misplaced Pages

Googol: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 04:36, 21 July 2008 view sourceOroso (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers3,941 editsm Reverted 1 edit by 76.112.152.69 identified as vandalism to last revision by Tj9991. (TW)← Previous edit Revision as of 17:46, 23 July 2008 view source 206.193.244.27 (talk) ← Replaced content with 'SUCK IT!'Next edit →
Line 1: Line 1:
SUCK IT!
{{two other uses||the Internet company|Google|the Russian author|Nikolai Gogol}}
A '''googol''' is the ] 10<sup>100</sup>, that is, the ] 1 followed by one hundred ] (in ] representation).
The term was coined in 1938<ref>Kasner, Edward and James Newman, ''Mathematics and the Imagination,'' ], Simon and Schuster, New York. ISBN 0-486-41703-4</ref> by Milton Sirotta (1929–1980), nephew of American ] ]. Kasner popularized the concept in his book ''Mathematics and the Imagination'' (1940).

Googol is of the same ] as the ] of 70 (70! being approximately 1.198 googol, or 10 to the power 100.0784), and its only ]s are 2 and 5 (100 of each). In ] it would take up 333 ]s.
A googol has no particular significance in ], but is useful when comparing with other incredibly large quantities such as the number of subatomic particles in the visible universe or the number of possible ] games. ] created it to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and ], and in this role it is sometimes used in teaching mathematics.

A '''googol''' can be written in conventional notation as follows:

:1 googol
:= 10<sup>100</sup>
:=&nbsp;<small>'''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'''</small>
Its official English ] is '''ten duotrigintillion''' on the ], '''ten thousand sexdecillion''' on the ], or '''ten sexdecilliard''' on the ].

==Googolplex ==
{{Main|googolplex}}
A googolplex is the number one followed by one googol zeroes, or ten raised to the power of one googol:
:10<sup>googol</sup> = 10<sup>(10<sup>100</sup>)</sup>.

In the documentary ], physicist and broadcast personality ] estimated that writing a googolplex in numerals (i.e., "1,000,000,000...") would be physically impossible, since doing so would require more space than the known universe occupies.

==Googol and comparable large numbers==

A googol is greater than the number of atoms in the ], which has been variously estimated from 10<sup>79</sup> up to 10<sup>81</sup> <ref> of the number of atoms in the Universe; 10<sup>78</sup> up to 10<sup>81</sup></ref><ref> of the number of atoms in the Universe; 4&nbsp;×&nbsp;10<sup>79</sup></ref>. Less than a googol ]s have elapsed since the ] (the current figure stands at around 8×10<sup>60</sup> Planck times). From the previous two figures, it can be seen that a list of where every particle is at every possible discernible unit of time since the ] would contain over a googol entries, but still far less than a googolplex: around 8&nbsp;×&nbsp;10<sup>140</sup>.

A ''little googol'' is 2<sup>100</sup> (about 1.268{{e|30}}), or 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376, while a ''little googolplex'' is <math>2^{2^{100}}</math> or about <math>10^{3.8 \times 10^{29}}</math>.

], 6.02214179{{e|23}}, is exactly the number of ] atoms in 12 grams (0.012 kg) of unbound <sup>12</sup>C in its ground state. It is perhaps the most widely known large number from ] and ]. Avogadro's number is less than the fourth root of a googol.

]s are presumed to evaporate because they faintly give off ]; if so, a ] would take ''about'' a googol years to evaporate.<ref>, p.4</ref>

Seventy ], or 70!, is 1.19785717&nbsp;×&nbsp;10<sup>100</sup>. This means that there are over a googol ways to arrange seventy items (or people) in a sequence (such as a line to a ]).

The ], 10<sup>120</sup>, a rough lower bound on the number of possible chess games, is more than a googol.

A googol is considerably less than the number described in the ancient ]' story of ], namely <math>\left((10^8)^{(10^8)}\right)^{(10^8)}=10^{8\cdot 10^{64}}.</math> But it should be noted that the system invented by ] is reminiscent of a ] with base 10<sup>8</sup>, so that ]' number could be written <math>\left_{10^8}=\left_{10^8}</math>, that is, one googol in base 10<sup>8</sup>

==In popular culture==

''Googol'' was the answer to the million-] question: ''"A number one followed by 100 zeros is known by what name?"'' on '']'' when ] allegedly attempted to defraud the quiz show on ] ]. The other options were a ], a ] or a nanomole.<ref></ref>

''Googol'' is one of the 336 vocabulary words in the board game Balderdash, and their definition on the back of the card is "The number one followed by 100 zeros."

In the ], ] '']'' strip, Lucy asks Schroeder what the chances are of them getting married, and Schroeder responds "Oh, I'd say about 'googol' to one."

In an episode of the animated series '']'', the "Gaminator" video games system is said to have a "3-googolhertz processor."

"A googol is precisely as far from infinity as is the number one." — ], '']''

The company name ] is a misspelling of the word "Googol" made by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as described in the book ''The Google Story'' by ].

==See also==
*]
*]
*]

==References==
<!-- This article uses ]. Please use this format in the article text when inserting references. Any external link inserted directly into this section will be swiftly deleted. -->{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
*
* {{MathWorld | urlname=Googol | title=Googol}}
* {{PlanetMath | urlname=Googol | title=googol}}
* by Paul Niquette

]
]

]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]

Revision as of 17:46, 23 July 2008

SUCK IT!