The number googol is a noun and defined as the figure 1 followed by 100 zeros equal to 10100. First used in 1920, the term was thought of by the 9-year old nephew of famous mathematician Edward Kasner. The term became popularized in the 1940s when Kasner published his book Mathematics and the Imagination.
A googol has no special significance in mathematics, which is good! Because that would be another fact in math that would go over my head! Even imagining the number in my head is impossible. Today, the number is commonly used to compare with other very large numbers such as the number of possible moves in a game of chess. Also, the company Google, founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, was just an accidental misspelling of the term googol.
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Sources
“Googol.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster
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