What is a Googolplex?

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What is a googolplex?

A googolplex is a number represented by 1 followed by a googol zeros, or ten to the power of one googol.

Where did the term googolplex come from?

Mathematician Edward Kasner and his nephews Milton Sirotta and Edwin Sirotta came up with the term googol as a big number. Sirotta then proposed "googolplex" as the name for an even bigger number: "1, followed by writing zeros until you got tired."

In his book Mathematics and the Imagination Kasner noted that this variable definition of a googolplex would not do "because different people get tired at different times and it would never do to have Carnera [a champion boxer] a better mathematician than Dr Einstein, simply because he had more endurance."

How big is a googolplex?

A googolplex is probably the largest number with a common name. (Obviously, a googolplex is not the largest number. For example, googolplex + 1 is larger.)

It's really hard to wrap one's brain conceptually around the issue of how big this number is. Here's a link to a fun page with some interesting thoughts on the matter. And here's some more material that may help you to imagine the size of a googolplex.

The Big Numbers page shows you a whole bunch of big numbers with funny names, and also shows the comparative size of a googol, a googolplex, and all these other big numbers with peculiar names.

Is there a building called the Googolplex?

No. Thats the "Googleplex" -- the name given by Google and its employees to the corporate campus in sunny Mountain View, CA.