Googol

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈɡuː.É¡É™l/, /ˈɡuː.É¡É’l/
• US IPA: /ˈɡu.É¡É™l/, /ˈɡu.É¡É‘l/
• Rhymes: -uːɡəl
• Homophones: google, Google

Origin

Made up in 1938 by the nine year old Milton Sirrota, the nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner who had asked Milton for the hypothetical number of 10 to the 100th.

Full definition of googol

Numeral

1. (cardinal) The number 10¹⁰⁰, written as 1 followed by 100 zeros.
• 1979, Steven Pinker, "Formal models of language learning", Language, Cognition, and Human Nature:For example, in considering all the finite state grammars that use seven terminal symbols and seven auxiliary symbols (states), ... he must test over a googol (10^100) candidates.
• 1980, Carl Sagan, , chapter IXIf the universe were packed solid with neutrons, say, so there was no empty space anywhere, there would still only be about 10¹²⁸ particles in it, quite a bit more than a googol but trivially small compared to a googolplex.

Derived terms

• Google
• googolplex