googol
an incredibly large number
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
"Are there a GOOGOL atoms in the planet Earth? Not by a long shot. There are not even a googol atoms in the entire visible universe! A googol is 10 to the power of 100."
(Dr. Sten Odenwald - Education and Public Outreach program)
(Dr. Sten Odenwald - Education and Public Outreach program)
Did you
know?
googol
Don't confuse "googol" with the world's favourite search engine "Google".
A googol is a very large number that is expressed in numerals as one followed by one hundred zeroes
Etymology:
"Googol" proves that a nine-year-old can have big ideas. In the late 1930s, American mathematician Edward Kasner (1878-1955) was working on calculations using an enormous number:
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.
Kasner thought it would be easier to talk about that gigantic number if it had a name, so he asked his nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, what he should call it. Milton came up with "googol." Kasner liked the name and started using it, and before long other mathematicians and the general public had picked it up too.
Don't confuse "googol" with the world's favourite search engine "Google".
A googol is a very large number that is expressed in numerals as one followed by one hundred zeroes
Etymology:
"Googol" proves that a nine-year-old can have big ideas. In the late 1930s, American mathematician Edward Kasner (1878-1955) was working on calculations using an enormous number:
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.
Kasner thought it would be easier to talk about that gigantic number if it had a name, so he asked his nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, what he should call it. Milton came up with "googol." Kasner liked the name and started using it, and before long other mathematicians and the general public had picked it up too.
