Googol / Googolplex
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
A googol is 10 raised to the 100th power.
A googolplex is 10 raised to the power of a googol. It is also the highest number defined.
The name googol was invented by the nine year old nephew of Dr. Kasner when asked to think up a name for a 1 with a hundred zeros after it. He came up with googol and also with googolplex, which was first supposed to be a 1 with as many zeros after it one could write until one got tired. Although that would actually happen if you tried to write a googolplex out, it also meant that for different people a googolplex meant a different number. So they decided to define a googolplex as a 1 with a googol of zeros following.
To give the reader an idea of how big that number is: You could write a 1 and zeros to the next star system and back and still there wouldn't be enough zeros for a googolplex. ><>
A googolplex is 10 raised to the power of a googol. It is also the highest number defined.
The name googol was invented by the nine year old nephew of Dr. Kasner when asked to think up a name for a 1 with a hundred zeros after it. He came up with googol and also with googolplex, which was first supposed to be a 1 with as many zeros after it one could write until one got tired. Although that would actually happen if you tried to write a googolplex out, it also meant that for different people a googolplex meant a different number. So they decided to define a googolplex as a 1 with a googol of zeros following.
To give the reader an idea of how big that number is: You could write a 1 and zeros to the next star system and back and still there wouldn't be enough zeros for a googolplex. ><>
