Googol
is the number 10
100
, or
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
. It is also known as ten-duotrigintillion or ten thousand sexdecillion.
[1]
[2]
A 9-year-old
Milton Sirotta
, nephew of U.S. mathematician
Edward Kasner
, first used the word
googol
. Sirotta made this word in 1937, for the
number
represented by the
numeral
1 followed by 100 zeros.
[3]
He may have been inspired by the comic strip character Barney Google.
The company
Google
was named after the number "googol." Its creators originally called it BackRub because it used backlinks to tell how important each page was. Someone suggested "googolplex." They shortened it to "googol" and then spelled the word wrong when looking for a
domain name
that was not taken yet.
[4]