The difference between googol and Google- a podcast

Today’s word is one we are all familiar with or at least a recent variation on it. The word is googol. Not the G-O-O-G-L-E of Google.com but the original googol that inspired Larry & Sergey to name their search tool Google.

A googol is the number one followed by 100 zeros. It is very big number. It is also known as a duotrigintillion. I am glad we don’t have to visit duotrigintillion.com for all our searches.

Here are a few fun facts about the number googol:

• A googol is greater than the number of particles in the known universe, which has been variously estimated from 10⁷² up to 10⁸⁷.
  
• A 9 year old Milton Sirotta, nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner, coined the term.
  
• A few years ago the Sirotta family tried to sue Google for exploiting the term their ancestors invented.
  
• They didn’t win.
  
• A googolplex, as far as I can tell is the largest named finite number (If I am wrong please correct me). It is the number 1 follow by a googol of zeros. Too big a number to even imagine.
  

A googol can be written in conventional notation, as follows:

1 googol = 10¹⁰⁰ = 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