google for number?

[keannu]

Does "google", a search engine's name have any meaning for number like billion, million, etc? My student said it, but it may be wrong.

[Ouisch]

A "googol" is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0 00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (the digit one followed by one hundred zeros, also written as 10 to the 100th power). The founders of the Google search engine named their company after this number but changed the spelling slightly.

[keannu]

A "googol" is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0 00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (the digit one followed by one hundred zeros, also written as 10 to the 100th power). The founders of the Google search engine named their company after this number but changed the spelling slightly.

Is it commonly known to many people? Or just a rare knowledge?

[riquecohen]

A "googol" is 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0 00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (the digit one followed by one hundred zeros, also written as 10 to the 100th power). The founders of the Google search engine named their company after this number but changed the spelling slightly.

Thanks for this new piece of knowledge.

Is it commonly known to many people? Or just a rare knowledge?

I had never heard this before. I would say it's rather arcane.

[Ouisch]

I was only familiar with the word "googol" because I've written trivia for a living for the past nine years, and my head is filled with useless information like "What was the Skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island?"** I think pretty much only mathematicians and trivia nerds would immediately recognize "googol."








** Jonas Grumby

[SoothingDave]

Steve Martin, back in the 70s, did a routine about a stereo he had with a lot of speakers. A googlephonic system with a moon rock needle.

(Not bad for a car stereo, he joked, wouldn't want it in his house.)

[Rover_KE]

Googol became more widely known in the UK in 2001 as a result of a cheating scandal in the TV quiz Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

It was the correct answer to the £1m question, but the 'winner' was subsequently convicted of cheating.

Rover

[emsr2d2]

Wow. I've been labouring under the misapprehension for years that it was "Go Ogle" written as one word. I thought it meant "Go and look at things" which is effectively what we do on the net. I'm somewhat disappointed that it's not true as I rather like the word "ogle" and try to use it wherever possible (especially when trying to make another user of the word stop pronouncing it "oggle"!)

[birdeen's call]

I think pretty much only mathematicians and trivia nerds would immediately recognize "googol."

That's probably true, although it should be said that learning the word "googol" is not part of a mathematician's training. It's just a piece of trivia for mathematicians too.

I have noticed that younger children love asking about large numbers and operations on them. For some reason they're more impressed when I say a number whose name is quite long, but which is not necessarily gigantic, than when I show them this number, which is far beyond any estimates of the number of all entities current theories state exist.

The notation is explained here.

[5jj]

The notation is explained here.