googol
pronunciation
How to pronounce googol in British English:
UK [ˈgu:gɒl]
How to pronounce googol in American English:
US [ˈgugɔl]
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- Noun:
- a cardinal number represented as 1 followed by 100 zeros (ten raised to the power of a hundred)
Word Origin
- googol
- googol: [20] There are comparatively few ‘new’ words in the English language – that is, words which have not been made up from combinations of old words, or borrowed from other languages, but have sprung up as entirely new growths – but this is one of them. When in the 1930s the American mathematician Dr Edward Kasner was trying to think of a name for an unimaginably large number, ten to the power of a hundred, he asked his nine-year-old nephew Milton Serotta for a suggestion, and googol was what he got. It has never really caught on in technical use, although it has spawned a compound of its own – the googolplex, ten to the power of a googol.
- googol (n.)
- number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeroes, 1940, in "Mathematics and the Imagination," a layman's book on mathematics written by U.S. mathematicians Edward Kasner (1878-1955) and James R. Newman, the word supposedly coined a year or two before by Kasner's 9- (or 8-) year-old nephew (unnamed in the book's account of the event), when asked for a name for an enormous number. Perhaps influenced by comic strip character Barney Google. Googolplex (10 to the power of a googol) coined at the same time, in the same way, with plex.
Example
- 1. They changed the name to google , which stems from the mathematical term " googol . "
- 2. The chances of linda becoming a neurosurgeon are about one in a googol .
- 3. Susan and her googol power characters are now visiting schools and libraries to promote family learning and ways to combine reading and math .
- 4. Brin and page found " googol " fitting because it represented a powerful search engine with access to tons of information .
- 5. Just five years ago a googol was an obscure , unimaginable concept : the number one followed by 100 zeros .