Talk:Googol/Archive 1

Googolhedron
I have removed the following section from the article:

''A googolhedron is a three-dimensional shape bounded by 10100 similar polygons. Because of this great many number of polygons, this shape would look very much like a sphere. Having this many sides or facets would make it smoother than any man made object. There can, however, never actually be a googolhedron because there are not a googol particles in the known (observed) universe.''

This is nonsense. What should it mean? A regular googolhedron cannot exist (see Platonic solids), so that cannot be it. What is meant by similar poygons? In math, it means polygons of the same shape, but not necessarily of the same size. Did the author really mean that, or did (s)he mean congruent polygons (having the same size, too)? Either way, here's a googolhedron very unlike a sphere: Take half-a-googol isoceles triangles, each with a height about 0.1 googol times the base, and join them to form the sides of a pyramid with a regular half-a-googol-gon as its base (indistinguishable from a cone). Join two such pyramids base-to-base to form a googolhedron that is no way near a sphere.--Niels Ø 10:13, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I removed the comment again; how smooth the googolhedron would be depends on how the faces are put together. User:Ben Standeven as 70.242.135.236 19:29, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Googol/Googolplex merge
Who chose this?? I think it might result in a large article. Check the size of how big an article will be. Georgia guy 19:46, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a terrible idea. I see the articles as having two different characters: Let us not get caught up in merger-mania just because merging articles is possible. To merge googolplex into the googol article would dilute it's effect. I say let it stand as it is now as the separate and unique subject that it represents. Kaimiddleton 17:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
 * googol is a somewhat basic idea mathematically. It is a huge number that can be rather easily explained.  The mathematics, physics, chemistry and pedagogy that can be discussed in relation to it are not particularly deep.  And of course there is the relation to the search engine.
 * googolplex is a second order concept. Some people can understand the idea of a googol without quite grasping a googolplex.  In fact, it's quite difficult to think of real-world quantities of this magnitude.  So the discussion and related topics are of a much deeper nature.  Here there is no obvious association to Google, Inc.; although their corporate campus is termed the 'googolplex', this is not that widely known.

Googol bigger than the known particles in the universe?
What particles are we talking about here? Quarks? Mathmatically speaking, isn't there no such thing as the absolute elementary unit? What I mean is, a fraction can be infintely small, which is reflected in matter in the universe. Atoms, protons, not even quarks can be said to be the smallest, because they are all made up of something smaller. Malamockq 14:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we're talking about protons and neutrons. The idea of "how many particles are there in the universe" goes back before the quark-gluon model, so traditionally folks are talking about the sub-atomic particles that were well known in the 1950s. That's my understanding.  From there it's not too hard to do a few simple calculations that illustrate the orders of magnitude that are being discussed.  Kaimiddleton 17:54, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, but my point is, while a googol might be larger than the amount of protons and neutrons in the universe, you can't say that a googol is larger than the amount of elementary particles in the universe because theoretically there are no elementary particles, as something would always be smaller. Malamockq 13:44, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It depends on what theory you're using. I believe that current physical theories of the universe state that quarks (and leptons?) are fundamental particles and cannot be divided, so you cannot have "half an electron", for example. Also, even if the "particles" referred to are protons and neutrons, counting quarks will only increase this by a factor of three, certainly not enough to bring the count up to a googol. —Bkell (talk) 15:53, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't believe theories state that quarks can't be divided or aren't made up of smaller particles, they are simply the smallest particles discovered thus far due to our current understanding of such things. Malamockq 15:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The Standard Model says that quarks, leptons, and gauge bosons are elementary particles. If these particles are found to be made up of yet smaller particles, then we will have to come up with a new theory to replace the Standard Model. Therefore, this widely held theory does state that quarks cannot be divided.
 * In any case, the argument that things should be infinitely divisible because mathematics works that way ignores the fact that mathematics is not a perfect model of the universe. Read about the Planck length and the Planck time, for example; length is not infinitely divisible, at least not in a physically meaningful way, and neither is time. If two events are separated by less than one Planck time, they can be considered to happen simultaneously. Electric charge is another property that is not infinitely divisible; you can't have an electric charge less than the elementary charge (or a third of the elementary charge, if you count the fractional charges of quarks). —Bkell (talk) 20:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Googol "ill-named"
I removed this from the article:
 * Many people feel that googol is ill-named, because numbers are named every three decimal places. Googol, however, is named at 10,000,... making some people think that googol should be one followed by 99 zeros to make its nameng correct.

I have a degree in math but I've never heard this criticism, either from teachers, peers or students. If this feeling that googol is ill-named is widespread and documentable, then I think it would bear mention in the article, otherwise, my opinion is that it's not notable. However, to enhance clarity in the article, I think this phrase or something similar would be appropriate if someone wants to add it in a strategic location: "...so googol has 101 digits." Kaimiddleton 19:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Counting or Measuring?
Does a googol refer to a number of objects, "ordinals" so to speak, or to other concepts of size, using "real numbers"? In the latter case it is very simple to generate giant numbers by using tiny units...

Also I find the mentioning of pocket calculators confusing, as they have a limited precision of 10 digits max... They just use tricks with a logarithmic representation..


 * I have owned two calculators that retained more than 10 significant digits. The TI-57, 58 and 59 used 13 digits, and I believe the HP-15 did as well.  Also the HP-45. Although I have not used a scientific calculator in many years, the reasons for those extra digits have not gone away. What is the market like now?Marzolian 04:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you could add a reference to Archimedes who invented large numbers 2200 years ago...The_Sand_Reckoner --Mipsy 08:28, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "invented large numbers"? --Lenoxus 14:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think googol refers to either number of objects or concepts of size. I haven't read the book Mathematics and the Imagination, but as I recall one of my professors relating the story, the author's nephew was impressed by the sight of a very large number with many, many zeros, and blurted out the word "googol" to describe it.  It's more of an emotional concept, rather than a precise mathematical concept. --QuicksilverT @ 07:02, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmmm, I think someone's confusing the name for the object here. Yes, "gogol" is a nonsensical word, but it also happens to refer to a number which does exist in mathematics. Still, it is a great story, and I'm glad someone's sharing it somewhere. --Lenoxus 14:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Importance of Kasner's religion?
The text currently reads: "... of Jewish American mathematician Edward Kasner" Is it relevant to mention his religion at all? Is there something different about Jewish mathematics? Marzolian 04:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC) I see that his religion has been deleted. I think it's a good idea.Marzolian 05:24, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Date of coining
There seems to be a little confusion over exactly when the term was coined. This link (found in the "External links" section) states the date to be 1938, which is what I changed it to when I thought I was reverting vandalism. Are there any definite sources on it, or is the exact year a matter of speculation? Robotman1974 11:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, for crying out loud. I just saw the comments directly above this.  I'll fix it. Robotman1974 11:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Not to worry &mdash; easily done. (I got there before you with the fixing.) --Mel Etitis ( Talk ) 12:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Trivia mistake
The article claims (under trivia) that "If you drew a regular polygon with a googol sides that was 1027 times the size of the known universe, it would still appear circular, even on the scale of a Planck length." I'm pretty sure this is wrong. The Planck length is about 10-34m. A regular polyhedron with a googol sides would be formed from a googol isoceles triangles placed side by side (with a common top vertex), each one having a base angle of (10100-2)π/(2*10100). This gives a radius of around 10-19m, while the radius of a proton is 10-15m. Did I make a mistake, or should this be deleted? -- athaler 18:13, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * This annoys me enough that I've removed it. If someone can give me some explanation for why it's correct, then I will have no objections about restoring it. -- athaler 18:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I haven't checked your math but I agree about removing that item. It seems a rather contrived example anyway.  I think in the near future I'm going to add a reference to the trivia section concerning Avogadro's number (a huge number that's smaller than a googol) and possibly the third number of Ackerman's seqeuence (on the high end).  Unless anybody objects. Kaimiddleton 22:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
 * i agree with your removal, the closer you get to planck length the more defined an object would become, depending on the style of polygon, the shape would more likely become less circular the closer to planck length the observation was. (that sentence needs better grammar, feel free to edit it for that) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.187.112.51 (talk) 07:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Spelling Mistake?
The article says:


 * The Internet search engine Google was named after this number. The original founders were going for 'Googol', but ended up with 'Google' due to a spelling mistake. Lawrence E. Page: "Lucas Pereira: 'You idiots, you spelled "Googol" wrong!' But this was good, because google.com was available and googol.com was not. Now most people spell 'Googol' 'Google', so it worked out OK in the end."

http://www.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=487&topic=367 says:


 * The name "Google" is a play on the word "googol," which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. A googol refers to the number represented by a 1 followed by 100 zeros. A googol is a very large number. There isn't a googol of anything in the universe -- not stars, not dust particles, not atoms. Google's use of the term reflects our mission to organize the world's immense (and seemingly infinite) amount of information and make it universally accessible and useful.


 * More information about Google can be found at http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

So was it originally a play on words or a spelling mistake? --Petros471 19:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)


 * We may never know. See "5 Different Stories About Google's Name" at http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/07/5-different-stories-about-googles-name.html --Ghartwig (talk) 10:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally, I thought it was an honest spelling mistake. I always spelled it "google" before the search engine came to be.  In fact, it was on wikipedia that I first saw "googol".--Gunso (talk) 17:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

nephew of Bharatiya mathematician?
The "term was coined Hardik Upadhyay (1886–1980), nephew of Bharatiya mathematician Pingala?" According to the Pingala article, he was an ancient scholar, who, short of Vedic miracles, cannot have had a nephew born in 1886. And why use the word "Bharatiya"? Is there some reason why this coinage is preferred over Indian? Paul B (talk) 08:43, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, just plain vandalism. Paul B (talk) 08:46, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Popular Culture section
The quote attributed to Carl Sagan is a misquote. I just checked Chapter IX of my 1980 edition of Cosmos, as well as episode IX on the DVD set of the collected Cosmos TV series, and the proper quote is: "A googolplex is precisely as far from infinity as is the number one." Therefore, this quote should be fixed and/or moved to the Googolplex article. 130.13.50.198 (talk) 03:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC) Rob Poole

Googol and comparable large numbers - Wrong estimate
In the first paragraph, the estimated number of particles in the universe and the estimated age of the universe are (correctly) quoted.

However, the subsequent statement:

"From the previous two figures, it can be seen that a list of where every particle is at every possible discernible unit of time since the Big Bang would contain over a googol entries, but still far less than a googolplex: around 8 × 10^140."

does not follow! In fact, a list of *where* a particle is requires an estimation of the *size* of the universe (e.g. we're missing three dimensions out of four here). The estimation provided is just the size of a list of whether every particle existed at every instant of time (which I'd deem not interesting).

We are not sure whether the universe is finite, but if we limit ourselves at the size of the observable universe (about 46 billion light years in every direction) assuming a spherical form we have a volume of 3.6*10^80 m^3. Since the smallest scale at which a measure of position is meaningful can be taken as the Planck length (L = 1.6*10^-35 m, paralleling the argument for time) we have that the universe is around 8.5*10^185 L^3.

Therefore, multiplying by the figure above we have that a list of positions of all particles at every instant of time would be of the order of 10^325, which is still much bigger than a googol but obviously unfathomably smaller than a googolplex.

If no (serious) objections are raised within a week I will correct the argument in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davide.tassinari (talk • contribs) 07:37, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Googol and comparable large numbers - Sand Reckoner's number
The number from the Sand Reckoner is not true! (((10^8)^(10^8))^(10^8))=10^(8*(10^16)), but this is rendered incorrectly as 10^(8*(10^64)). Just see the Sand Reckoner article. I would change this myself, but I don't know how...--Kwierschem (talk) 22:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction between "Googol" and "Googolplex" articles
The Googol article says that the term "googol" was coined in the 1920s, while the Googolplex article says it was coined in 1938! What am I supposed to do now!? vilem 20:31, 28 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Lokking at Edward Kasner, the confusion seems to be between Milton Sirotta's coining of the term in about 1920 and Kasner's use of it in a book published in 1940. I'll correct Googolplex accordingly. --Mel Etitis  ( Μελ Ετητης ) 10:09, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Awesome. Wikipedia saves itself again...--Lenoxus 16:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Not meaning to be rude, but, the article googolplex still mentions that Milton Sirrota coined the term in 1938. Zheliel (talk) 07:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Revert history
Wow - this must be on the top-10 list of "most abused articles on wikipedia"! The history is a long chain of useless anonymous undocumented changes. I revered back 3 weeks or so. Perhaps this article needs to be protected since it isn't important enough apparently to be properly monitored daily for vandalism. Tom Ruen (talk) 07:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Quite right. I agree. Zheliel (talk) 07:51, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Googol vs. Google
The internet search Google should be added to the popular culture section. Google was an intentional misspelling of googol, and is very popular, therefore it should be added. Ductapeinnovations (talk) 00:36, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Possible inconsistency
"Back when it was named in 1938, the googol was undeniably large. However, with the invention of fast computers and fast algorithms, computation with numbers the size of a googol has become routine. For example, even the difficult problem of prime factorization is now fairly accessible for 100-digit numbers."

If a computer can compute googol sized numbers, wouldn't it be possible to write a googolplex out then? Meaning a 1 followed by a googol zeros. According to the googolplex article, it's not possible. Someone clarify. Malamockq 18:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I can work with numbers like 131 and 240 by writing only three digits. A computer needs only eight bits to represent these numbers. We can add them and subtract them, multiply and divide them, factor them, and so forth, with only a very few digits (or bits). But just because I can work with the number 240 doesn't mean I can write out a 1 with 240 zeros at the end. Maybe I don't have enough ink for that, or my page is too small, or I don't have enough time.
 * In much the same way, computers can easily add, subtract, multiply, and divide 100-digit numbers, because such numbers only require 335 bits or so to represent. Even I could add two 100-digit numbers together—it would take me two or three minutes, but it's not that hard. Give me a while longer and a lot of paper and I could probably multiply two 100-digit numbers together, though I would probably make some mistakes. But there's no way I can write a googol zeros. Even a computer cannot write a googol zeros. There aren't enough atoms in the universe to write on, and there haven't been anywhere close to enough nanoseconds since the Universe began. —Bkell (talk) 19:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Of course, in theory (that is, ignoring the physical universe we live in), it would be possible for even a very slow computer to write a googolplex, as long as it could count to a googol (which would require about 335 bits of memory). I don't know what it would write on, and it would take just short of forever, but there are no theoretical reasons that writing a googolplex is impossible. But in reality we live in a finite universe, we don't have forever to wait, and we have only a finite amount of usable energy. These are the reasons it's impossible to write out a googolplex. —Bkell (talk) 19:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

In binary a googol is 333 digits, so it takes up 333 bits of space. By comparison a large computer hard drive is 1TB, or 8 x 2^40 bits. This would mean the hard drive could contain a number roughly (2.64 x 10^10) googols. If you divide a googolplex by this number, you will get how many terabytes of space would be required to store a googolplex. The result is around 3.78 x 10^89 TB. In other words, not even close. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.179.165.192 (talk) 04:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

...would require more space than the known universe occupies.
This sentence may be subject of debate.

According to current human understanding of physics, universe isn't using up any space: it DEFINES the space-time lattice we enjoy (doesn't matter if one is referring to the whole entity or just the area within our particle horizon).

IMHO the phrase should be re-sentenced to "space PROVIDED by known universe" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Z0rb1n0 (talk • contribs) 00:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

googol is a misspelling of google —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.173.6.214 (talk) 20:21, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Known Universe
Many folks dont understand that universe and known universe its different. They mean by "known universe" the part that can be seen by the Hubble telescope only. And the number of particles for this section only can be estimated very precisely. On the other hand, the whole universe is infinity, endless, meaning that there is no number that could represent the total number of atoms, or planets or galaxies in the universe. This is the real meaning of infinity and eternity. There are very big number like googolplex or (googolplex to the power of googolplex googolplex times). But even these unthinkable big numbers dont come any closer to infinity than number one is.
 * Most people actually believe space is curved in the fourth spacial dimension, like a hypersphere. Looping, but not infinite.

Junulo 21:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

hiiii;) Al osorio 07:27, 14 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I know that this is a late reply, but I had to post it. Junulo: your post is misinformed. The known universe is, quite unsuprisingly, the universe we know of and not necessarily what the Hubble telescope can see. (Does the Hubble telescope have a blind spot?) The number of particles that the Hubble telescope can "see" can not by any reasonable bound be "estimated very precisely": that is utter nonsense! There are particles smaller that the size of a photon, and how can we "see" (i.e. use photons to detects) something smaller than a photon? There are particle (e.g. quarks) that are far too small for us to detect using only the electromagnetic spectrum. Most people do not think that space-time is curved like a hypersphere, some people have suggested that it may have a non-euclidean geometry. Some people suggest that the universe may be compact, but there are infinitly many topologically distinct compact manifolds (a rubber ring for swimming is compact, but it's very different in shape to a beach ball, which is also compact!) Δεκλαν Δαφισ   (talk)  22:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Error in the beginning section of the article
A googol can be written in conventional notation as follows:

1 googol = 10*110   = 10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 a googol can be calculated as 10^100 not 10*110 which = 1100. I may be missing something here but this is very obviously wrong. Suic (talk) 20:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Googol and google
This was added by someone to the top of the article in bold "Using this word "googol" Lary Page and Sergey named their company: Google! - Amber R. Marfatia". Was this vandalism or a legitimate edit? I don't think we need to mention that at the very top of the article. 24.127.224.173 16:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Hard to tell. In either case it's an edit that does not fit.  Googol is the number 10100.  This usage has been known for about 70 years.  The connection to "google" is given later in the page. Kaimiddleton 22:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
 * concepts first: it belong, but not at the top.Roxy:Pkid (talk) 21:01, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The Shrinking Googol
This section reads: Back when it was named in 1938, the googol was undeniably large. However, with the invention of fast computers and fast algorithms, computation with numbers the size of a googol has become routine. For example, even the difficult problem of prime factorization is now fairly accessible for 100-digit numbers. Computations of a googol steps are still completely out of reach. I emphasized the last sentence: how would it be even theoretically possible to do a googol steps? Are we talking quantum computation? Is even that plausible? And, importantly, do we have a citation for this kind of claim? Kaimiddleton 01:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC) * sci-fi,Roxy:Pkid (talk) 21:03, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Contradiction in Sirotta's Age
The introduction states that Milton Sirotta was born in 1911, but was only nine years old in 1938 when he coined the term "googol". —Tonyle (talk • contribs) 18:16, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Error in the bibliography
The article claims that Mathematics and the Imagination was co-written by Luis Correa. That's absurd. It was co-written by James R. Newman. Chasklue (talk) 13:30, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Checked the cover on Amazon, and it does indeed list James R. Newman. --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:47, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Luis Correa was an early 20th century boxer? I wonder what happened there. --Kim Bruning (talk) 12:50, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

ref mismatch

 * The company name Google is a misspelling of the word "Googol"
 * 1) Body text: As described in the book The Google Story by David A. Vise.
 * 2) Ref: Brin, S. and Page, L. (1998). The anatomy of a large-scale hypertextual Web search engine. Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 30(1-7):107–117

Which is correct? (or are they both correct, and is this a deep reference?)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 12:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

The date mistake
The article says that Milton Sirotta has coined the term in 1938. But the article on Milton Sirotta himself says that he was born in 1911 and thus invented the term in 1920. One of these can't be right!


 * I remember reading two other maths books which both state that Milton was 9 years old when he invented the term, so it is likely that the 1938 date is incorrect. However, keep in mind that there is a possibility that the Milton Sirotta article is incorrect and that he might have been born in 1929. -- Daverocks 12:58, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, using google :) suggests that the invention date is 1938, so probably Milton Sirotta article is incorrect, and he was born in 1929

In fact, the term "googol" was first identified in 1940 in the book MATHEMATICS AND THE IMAGINATION which was WRITTEN BY JAMES R. NEWMAN - to which Kasner's name was added because at that time Kasner was a better known mathematician. (Newman later became better known when in 1956 he published the best seller THE WORLD OF MATHEMATICS) It is also a fact that the story about Kasner's nephew coming up with the word googol when asked about a large number was entirely manufactured. In fact,it never happened that way! Nevertheless, the important thing to note is that the term "googol" WAS first identified in MATHEMATICS AND THE IMAGINATION, which was published in 1940 and assigning any "authorship" or "invention" of the term googol should most definitely, and more importantly, most accurately by attributed to both JAMES R. NEWMAN and Kasner, not one or the other given the books two authors. Indeed Brin and Page attribute the term to both authors on their web site.


 * Wolfram's Mathworld seems to think that it was coined in 1938. Please see Kasner, E & Newman, J. R. Mathematics and Imagination, Redmond, WA: Tempus Books, pp. 20 - 27, 1989. Δεκλαν Δαφισ   (talk)  22:32, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Still according to Google :), it would seem that Kasner and Newman's book refers to the invention of the term "googol" by a child, but mentions neither Milton Sirotta by name, nor the date on which the alleged invention took place. George963 au (talk) 05:05, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

"A little boy?"
The article now reads:

''The term was coined in 1938 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta(a little boy), nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. ''

The phrase "nine-year-old" and the word "nephew" explain Sirotta's gender and age; saying that he is "a little boy" is redundant and should be removed.108.8.209.117 (talk) 16:39, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

✅ Googol30 (talk) 01:58, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Googol compared with metric units
We know the meanings of the SI prefixes yocto- and yotta-, as well as the units of a meter and a parsec. We also know how cubic units are related (we must cube, not simply take, the prefixes' usual meanings.) Thus, the number of cubic yoctometers in a cubic yottaparsec would be huge, but still less than a googol squared; written in scientific notation the exponent is 193. Is this right?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:18, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Particles in the Universe
"A googol is greater than the number of particles in the known universe, which has been variously estimated from 10^72 up to 10^87."

How do we know how many particles are in the f****** universe? Is there a reputable source? It seems a bit preemptive to say that we know how many particles there are in the universe when we don't even know where most of the mass is!

A: Well, "googol" for sources:-) Parameters are:
 * Size of universe: some 1010 Lightyears => 1079 m3
 * Density:
 * either around a few particle per m3
 * or using cosmological "critical density" 4.7 x 10-27kg m3

The given range will easily accommodate for a lot of uncertainty. But notice that many numbers are nowadays around 1 googol. --Mipsy 08:28, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Well in empty space there is an estimated one atom per square metre, isn't that true? Androo123 (talk) 19:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There are many more particles in space than atoms.  elementary particles exist in the visible universe (not including dark matter) 31.185.241.136 (talk) 01:51, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 June 2015
Unless my knowledge of mathematics has failed me, I'm not sure that A googol is "the digit 1 followed by 100 ejaculations". Seems like some vandalism has remained on the page?

103.23.216.129 (talk) 05:07, 2 June 2015 (UTC)


 * ✅ - vandalism already reverted by another - Arjayay (talk)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 June 2015
68.74.157.3 (talk) 19:18, 3 June 2015 (UTC) If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ". Please also cite reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article. - Arjayay (talk) 19:42, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: as you have not requested a change.

Template:Gaps breaks mobile
Please do not put back in the use of the gaps template until/unless it has been fixed. As previously used, to display a googol, on this page, it was seriously breaking mobile viewing, which is why I removed the template changed it to plain formatting.  Cat-five t  c   11:39, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

A googol isn't 10^100. It's 10^(10^10)
A google is 10 to the 10th power to the 10th power.

That's taken to mean 10^(10^10)

In other words, 10 to the power of 10^10

In other words, 10 to the 10 billionth power.

That's what google means.

I notice that this article is closed to editing. Most likely that's because some people were trying to correct that error in the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.186.18.145 (talk) 19:52, 17 December 2017 (UTC)


 * What is your source for this piece of misinformation? The book Mathematics and the Imagination is very clear about the definition of a googol as a 1 with one hundred zeros following it, and the name as supplied by a nephew of one of the coauthors for that specific number. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 20:26, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, when I checked elsewhere, I found the same definition that your article gives: 10^100

So where did I get my misinformation about the definition of googol? I can only say that I've encountered, a few time, the definition that I gave.

But the Wolfram articles says that a googol is 10^100 and of course that's an authoritative source.

Now, I'm going to delete this section tomorrow, but I wanted to first post this retraction.

I presume that it's alright to delete a section about an incorrect definition.


 * Yes, the web is full of all sorts of misinformation, often blindly repeated on several sites. We do try to get the facts right by sticking to what the sources say (I am not saying that Wikipedia is perfect, I correct too many errors on a daily basis to ever make that statement). Please do not delete this thread, the culture around here strongly discourages such erasure; especially if more than one editor is involved. Right or wrong, someone may get some useful information from the exchange. --Bill Cherowitzo (talk) 18:23, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 September 2018
I would like to edit the document, because its facts about the number Googol and incorrect. You have stated that the number is 1 X 10^100, when, in fact, it is 1 x 10^100,000. It is a small, yet crucial mistake which I would like to correct. In no way am i trying to be rude and I hope you can appreciate that, Thank you. Mattches.Dot (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Padlock-dash2.svg Not done: requests for decreases to the page protection level should be directed to the protecting admin or to Requests for page protection if the protecting admin is not active or has declined the request. - FlightTime  ( open channel ) 17:42, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

"Googollion" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Googollion. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed,Rosguill talk 18:03, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

ZWD
Though this number may seem virtuly impracticle outside of mathematics I'm sure the estate agents of Zimbabwe are more than familiar with it! Elcaballooscuro (talk) 14:57, 2 May 2009 (UTC)


 * That's how amazingly large this number is. Even Zimbabwe, with the "4th dollar" being equal to 10^25 original dollars (ZWD1). Final exchange rates in 2009 were 3x10^28 original ZWD to the US Dollar. That gives a typical western house a value on the order of 10^34 ZWD1s. 10^37 ZWD1s would buy you the 12 most expensive houses in the world. The world's GDP is $70 Trillion, which is 2x10^41 ZWD1s.
 * If the world had produced the same economic output from this year for every year since it's creation 5 billion years ago, you'd get up to 10^51 ZWDs, nowhere near. So, howabout every star in the Milky Way producing $70T a year since the big bang? 2x10^41 * 14 billion years 14*10^9 * 100 billion stars 100*10^9 = 3 * 10^62 ZWD.
 * Still, the milky way is a pretty small place. How about every star in the universe working at 1 million times the economic output of Earth every year since the big bang? 2x10^41 * 1000000 * 14 billion years 14*10^9 * 10^22 stars = 10^78 ZWD.
 * Getting there, even with every solarsystem in the universe producing Zimbabwe dollars since the dawn of creation at an average of 1 million times the Earth's current economic output, you'd only be off a factor of 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
 * A googol is unimaginably big. 132.185.160.101 (talk) 16:10, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

What does ZWD mean?
 * Zimbabwe Dollar, of which there have a few versions. The oldest is so undervalued that its value is typically referred to in scientific notation. Nutster (talk) 15:30, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Was not were
and that if the whole universe were packed  - Universe is singular not plural so, if the whole universe was, is the correct spelling.
 * Fixed Nutster (talk) 04:52, 22 December 2019 (UTC)


 * No. It's past subjunctive mood, specifically irrealis mood, rather than simple past tense.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 06:11, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Amount of Zeros is incorrect
Maybe a miscount but my understanding of a Googol is a 1 followed by 100 zeros. I count 99 on the article at the moment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlescoop (talk • contribs) 10:21, 15 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Please sign all your talk page messages with four tildes ( ~ ) — See Help:Using talk pages. Thanks.
 * I count a 100 (33 groups of 3, plus 1) - DVdm (talk) 10:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Add scientific notation
1e100 is scientific notation for 1 googol. -- 1e100 (talk) 05:48, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Original research?
The section refering to the mass of the known universe is flagged with an "original research" tag. Well, ALL research was original, at some point. But there are a multitude of sources for the speculation that the mass of the visible universe is somewhere between 10^50 and 10^60 kg, so I'm not sure what the problem is here.

https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2006/KristineMcPherson.shtml

https://www.popsci.com/story/space/how-to-weigh-universe-sun-earth-planet-moon-asteroid-galaxy/

https://thescipub.com/pdf/pisp.2014.15.20.pdf


 * et al

But this article is broken, anyway -- there are no "edit" links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.253 (talk) 00:35, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

mention of Frontier supercomputer in the Size section
The paragraph on the Fronteir supercomputer seems superfluous and oddly written. Could someone remove this section (the article is locked to me). Here's the problematic section.

"Another way of illustrating the immense size of a googol is to picture the Frontier supercomputer, which as of 2022 is the most powerful supercomputer in the world and measures 680 m2 (7,300 sq ft), almost exactly the same size of a basketball court with run-offs and sidelines.[6] The Frontier is capable of making 1,102,000 TFLOPs (1.1 quintillion calculations per second). Imagine if the supercomputer, which cost approximately US$600 million to build, was shrunk down to the size of an atom (for reference, a typical grain of sand might have 37 quintillion atoms).[7] If every atom in the observable universe (~1080 atoms total[8]) was as powerful as a Frontier supercomputer, it would take approximately 100 seconds of parallel computing to manually add up all the digits like an adding machine (instead of using shorthand calculations)." 159.178.248.95 (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Make a version of googol without ,'s and .'s
[insert text here] 2A02:C7C:6A78:E300:95AD:E2B0:F7ED:1D7B (talk) 14:08, 17 June 2023 (UTC)