The term was coined in 1938 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta, nephew of Edward Kasner (Kasner 1989, pp. 20-27; Bialik 2004). Kasner then extended the term to the
larger "googolplex." It should be noted
that "googol" is indeed the correct spelling of the term, so the spelling
"Google" refers to the internet search engine, not one with 100
zeros.
The residues of googol (mod )
for , 2, ... are 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 4, 4, 0,
1, 0, ... (OEIS A066298).
The integer sequence counts the number of matrices over an alphabet
of size 10. Its terms for ,
2, ... begin 10, 10000, 1000000000, ... (OEIS A076782).
It reaches googol at ,
and googolplex () at . Since grows superexponentially in , this gives an idea of how big a googolplex
is with respect to the size of googol.
(i.e., a 1 with 100 zeros following it).
Written out explicitly,
)
for 
, 2, ... are 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 4, 4, 0,
1, 0, ... (OEIS A066298).
counts the number of 
matrices over an alphabet
of size 10. Its terms for 
,
2, ... begin 10, 10000, 1000000000, ... (OEIS A076782).
It reaches googol at 
,
and googolplex (
) at 
. Since 
grows superexponentially in 
, this gives an idea of how big a googolplex
is with respect to the size of googol.
