Hello,
I'm new to the group.
I'm trying to get my brain wrapped around the concept of a
Googleplex. I *think* * understand a Google. It's one followed by
100 zeros, right?

Yes...

The definition of a Googleplex is one followed by a google of zeros?
I don't get it. The definitions sound the same.
If anyone can help shed some light on this mysterious concept I'll
be very grateful.

Okay, a google is 10^100, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros. A
googleplex is 10^(10^100), which is ten raised to a power 1 followed by
a hundred zeros in that power., Which is significantly larger than
10^100. Here is some historical information on the subject that I found
on Ask Dr. Math. It appears that Dr. Peterson was asked about the
origin of the terms and there is some interesting things he says about
it below.

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Googol, Kasner, and Milton Sirotta


Date: 07/14/99 at 16:55:09
From: Melanie
Subject: Powers of 10

Who coined the phrase "googleplex," and when? I have used
several
search engines and they have the definition, but not the
origin.

Thank you for your consideration,
Melanie




Date: 07/15/99 at 11:59:13
From: Doctor Peterson
Subject: Re: Powers of 10

Hi, Melanie.

We get questions about this frequently, so I did a little
extra
research to find the details beyond what's in our archives.

Here's a page on the Web that tells about the origin of the
words
googol and googolplex:

How Many? A Dictionary of Units of Measurement
http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictG.html

This says:

"googol

a unit of quantity equal to 10^100 (1 followed by 100
zeroes). The
googol was invented by the American mathematician Edward
Kasner (1878-
1955) in 1938. According to the story, Kasner asked his
nephew Milton
Sirotta, who was then 8 years old, what name he would give
to a really
large number, and "googol" was Milton's response. Kasner
also defined
the googolplex, equal to 10^googol, that is, 1 followed by
a googol of
zeroes. These inventions caught the public's fancy and are
often
mentioned in discussions of very large numbers."

A slightly different version is in

Googolplex
http://www.fpx.de/fp/Fun/Googolplex/

which says:

"The American mathematician Edward Kasner once asked his
nine-year-old
nephew to invent a name for a very large number, ten to the
power of
one hundred; and the boy called it a googol. 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 10 to the power of
googol."

Here's a review of the 1940 book in which Kasner discussed
the googol:

Edward Kasner and James Newman. Mathematics and the
Imagination
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/bib/nf/k/kasner.htm

Also check out our Dr. Math FAQ on large numbers:

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.large.numbers.html

Summing up, the googol was named by Milton Sirotta, and the
googolplex
by his uncle Edward Kasner, who I suspect had set Milton up
by asking
for a name for the googol, just so he could name something
incredibly
larger.

Incidentally, you'll find that the googol can just as well
be called
"10 duotrigintillion" following the (more or less) standard
conventions for naming large numbers; googol is just the
fun name,
which allows us to name "googolplex" easily; and if a
mathematician
or scientist ever had occasion to use either number, they
would just
call them 10^100 and 10^10^100 because numbers are much
easier to work
with than names.

- Doctor Peterson, The Math Forum
http://mathforum.org/dr.math/



Corey...