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A googol is the large number 10. In decimal notation, it is written as the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeroes: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Concept

The term was coined in 1920 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta (1911–1981), nephew of U.S. 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.

Size

big

Properties

A googol is approximately a googol. the maximum bounds of an IEEE 754 double-precision floating point type, but without full precision in the googol.

Cultural impact

Widespread sounding of the word occurs through the name of the company Google, with the name "Google" being an accidental misspelling of "googol" by the company's founders, which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information. In 2004, family members of Kasner, who had inherited the right to his book, were considering suing Google for their use of the term googol; however, no suit was ever filed.

Since October 2009, Google has been assigning domain names to its servers under the domain "1e100.net", the scientific notation for 1 googol, in order to provide a single domain to identify servers across the Google network.

The word is notable for being the subject of the £1 million question in a 2001 episode of the British quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, when contestant Charles Ingram cheated his way through the show with the help of a confederate in the studio audience.

See also

• Googolplex
• Graham's number
• Skewes' number

• Infinity
• Names of large numbers

References

1. Bialik, Carl (June 14, 2004). "There Could Be No Google Without Edward Kasner". The Wall Street Journal Online. Archived from the original on November 30, 2016. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (retrieved March 17, 2015)
2. Kasner, Edward; Newman, James R. (1940). Mathematics and the Imagination. Simon and Schuster, New York. ISBN 0-486-41703-4. Archived from the original on 2014-07-03. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) The relevant passage about the googol and googolplex, attributing both of these names to Kasner's nine-year-old nephew, is available in James R. Newman, ed. (2000) . The world of mathematics, volume 3. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications. pp. 2007–2010. ISBN 978-0-486-41151-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
3. Koller, David (January 2004). "Origin of the name "Google"". Stanford University. Archived from the original on July 4, 2012. Retrieved July 4, 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
4. "Google! Beta website". Google, Inc. Archived from the original on February 21, 1999. Retrieved October 12, 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
5. "Have your Google people talk to my `googol' people". Archived from the original on 2014-09-04. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
6. Cade Metz (8 February 2010). "Google doppelgänger casts riddle over interwebs". The Register. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2015. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
7. "What is 1e100.net?". Google. Archived from the original on 9 January 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2015. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
8. Falk, Quentin; Falk, Ben (2005), "A Code and a Cough: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1998–)", Television's Strangest Moments: Extraordinary But True Tales from the History of Television, Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 245–246, ISBN 9781861058744.

External links

• Weisstein, Eric W. "Googol". MathWorld.
• googol at PlanetMath.
• Padilla, Tony; Symonds, Ria. "Googol and Googolplex". Numberphile. Brady Haran.

• Large integers
• Integers
• Units of amount