Google googol

Something I didn’t know …

According to Google, it derived its name from the mathematical term googol which is defined as the digit 1 followed by 100 zeros.

It looks like this:

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

It would look even bigger with all the commas!

Back in 1920 the term googol was coined by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta, the nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. Kasner popularised the concept and term in 1940.

Googol is a nice term. Other  names for the same number are: ten duotrigintillion, ten thousand sexdecillion and ten sexdecilliard. A googol is a simpler term.

It doesn’t really have much everyday use in the non-scientific community, but it comes into play in complex mathematics, investigations into the mass of an electron or the universe. If you are starting to get excited, then follow this link