Googol and Googolplex

The Amazing World of the Googol and the Googolplex

Googol

Not to be mistaken for the prominent search engine Google (whose name is a deliberate misspelling of googol, a ploy by the founders to suggest the engine provided unimaginable amounts of information), the simplest description of this mathematical term is it's a 'big number'. Googol, a 1 followed by 100 zeros can be written as:

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

 

However, more simply it can be written in standard form notation: 

10¹⁰⁰ 

A Googol has no specific importance within mathematics, however it does lead to another 'big number'.... a Googolplex.

Googolplex

 

A Googolplex is even larger than a Googol, and can be written as: 

10^googol or alternatively 10¹⁰¹⁰⁰ 

 

Much like a Googol, a Googolplex has no specific importance and there are other number greater in magnitude (for example googolduplex and googolplexian) however it is widely recognised as the 'largest number'. A Googolplex has so many zeros it is impossible to write apart from in notation form; even if a person can write two digits per second, then writing a googolplex would take around about 1.51×10⁹² years, which is about 1.1×10⁸² times the age of the universe. A Googolplex is so large if all the atoms in the known universe were lined up (estimated at 10⁸¹) and it was attempted to write the Googolplex out with one digit per atom there would not be enough!

 

The scale of the Googol and Googolplex is astounding when considered it is impossible to write out the digits even if a whole lifetime was dedicated to the task!