googol

English

WOTD – 23 January 2009

Etymology

Coined by Milton Sirotta in 1920 who was then the young nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner who had asked Milton to think of a name for the hypothetical number of 10 to the 100th power. The word was first published in the book Mathematics and the Imagination (1940).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡuː.ɡəl/, /ˈɡuː.ɡɒl/
• enPR: go͞o′gəl, go͞o′gŏl, IPA^(key): /ˈɡu.ɡəl/, /ˈɡu.ɡɑl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːɡəl
• Homophones: google, Google

Numeral

googol (plural googols)

1. The number $10^{100}$, or ten to the power of a hundred. Equivalent to ten duotrigintillion (short scale), or ten sedecilliard (long scale). [from 1920.]
   • 1940, Edward Kasner, James [Roy] Newman, “New Names for Old”, in Mathematics and the Imagination, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →OCLC, page 23:

     Words of wisdom are spoken by children at least as often as by scientists. The name "googol" was invented by a child (Dr. Kasner's nine-year-old nephew) who was asked to think up a name for a very big number, namely, 1 with a hundred zeros after it. He was very certain that this number was not infinite, and therefore equally certain that it had to have a name. […] A googolplex is much bigger than a googol, much bigger than a googol times a googol. A googol times a googol would be 1 with 200 zeros, whereas a googolplex is one with a googol of zeros. You will get some idea of the size of this very large but finite number from the fact that there would not be enough room to write it, if you went to the farthest star, touring all the nebulae and putting down zeros every inch of the way.

   • 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, Cosmos, chapter IX

     If 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
• googolplexplex
• googolplexth
• googolth
• googillion

Translations

1 followed by 100 zeros

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 古高爾／古高尔 (gǔgāo'ěr), 古高尔 (gǔgāo'ěr)

• Dutch: googol (nl)
• Esperanto: guglo (eo)
• Estonian: googol (et)
• Finnish: googol (fi)
• French: gogol (fr) m
• German: Googol (de) n
• Greek: Γκούγκολ (Gkoúgkol)
• Hebrew: גוגול (he)
• Hungarian: googol (hu)
• Japanese: 10の100乗 (10 no 100-jō), グーゴル (gūgoru)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Lithuanian: gugolas
• Malay:

  Jawi: ݢوݢول, ڤولوه دووتريݢينتيليون

  Rumi: googol, puluh duotrigintilion

• Norwegian: googol

  Bokmål: googol

  Nynorsk: googol

• Portuguese: googol (pt) m
• Russian: гугол (ru) (gugol)
• Spanish: gúgol (es) m
• Swedish: googol (sv) c
• Thai: กูกอล (googon)

References

• “googol”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “googol”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

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Malay

Malay cardinal numbers

<  1099	10100	10101  >
Cardinal : googol

Alternative forms

• ݢوݢول

Etymology

Borrowed from English googol.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡoɡol/
• Rhymes: -oɡol, -ɡol, -ol

Numeral

googol

1. googol

Synonyms

• puluh duotrigintilion / دووتريݢينتيليون ڤولوه

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Portuguese

Numeral

googol m (plural googols)

1. googol (1 followed by 100 zeros)