In 1938, the American mathematician Edward Kasner (1878-1955) asked his nine-year-old nephew Milton Sirotta to invent a name for a very large number, ten to the power of one hundred; and the boy called it a googol.
Kasner, Adrian Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University, announced the concept in his book Mathematics and the Imagination. He thought this was a number to overflow people's minds, being bigger than anything that can ever be put into words. Another mathematician then shot back with Googolplex, and defined it to be 'ten to the power of googol', proving poor old Edward wrong in an instant.
1 googol = 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
A googol is equal to ten duotrigintillion.
To give you an idea of its gargantuan enormity, a googol is greater than the number of particles in the known universe, which has been variously estimated from 'ten to the power of 72' up to 'ten to the power of 87'.
Since a 'googol plus 1' is the number of digits in a googolplex, it would therefore not be possible to write down or store the digits of a googolplex in decimal notation, even if all the matter in the known universe were converted into paper and ink or disk drives.
Googolplex is the second largest number with a name. The distinction of being the world's largest number with a name goes to googolplexian: a "1" followed by a googolplex of zeros.
Well, that was the case until I invented the azlanplex which is a "1" followed by a googolplexian of zeros. And then I invented the azlanplexian which is a "1" followed by an azlanplex of zeros.
The Internet search engine Google was named as a pun on the number googol. The original founders were going for 'Googol', but ended up with 'Google' due to a spelling mistake. Larry Page: "Lucas Pereira: 'You idiots, you spelled 'Googol' wrong!' But this was good, because google.com was available but googol.com was not. Now most people spell 'Googol' 'Google', so it worked out OK in the end."
Except for one tiny problem: Kasner's great-niece, Peri Fleisher, is suing Google.com, insisting that the US-based company has gained financially at the expense of the family. She said: "If we do have a legal right, we're certainly going to exercise that. And now is the time."
However, experts in intellectual property said that bringing a successful legal action would be problematic. "It would be an uphill struggle to try to assert any legitimate claim," said David Gourlay, a senior associate at the Dundas and Wilson Technology Group.
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