Talk:Googolplex/Archive 1

Archive 1

Length of a googolplex

If you wrote a googolplex on a single line in a 1-point font (1-point, not the standard 10 or 12-point,) how long would it be, in yottameters?? (A yottameter is equal to a septillion meters, or 625 quintillion miles.) 66.245.77.4 02:15, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Way too long to say. Pfortuny 14:35, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't be suprised if it were more than the diameter of the universe. Needless to say, my calculator software crashes when I try to perform any sums involving the Googolplex! Hazzamon 22:35, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

The answer is 42. Seriously, not only would it be longer than the diameter of the universe, but as the article states, it would take more particles than are in the known universe to even write down the digits of a googolplex one particle per digit, much less consider the distance of the quantity when written down in an arbitrary way. Nonetheless, given Tex 1pt font which is .3514598mm that means it would take about $2.845*10^{{googol}-27}$ yottameters to write in one point font. The known universe is estimated at (7.4 × 10²³ km), which puts it at .74 yottameters. Since 27 is nearly negligible in relation to a googol, it would be nearly a googolplex times the diameter of the known universe to write the digits of the number in one point font. Hmm, now I guess I'll merge this into the article. - Taxman 15:51, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC) I corrected the exponent math from what is here and added the comparison. - Taxman 16:15, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

But would it be possible to write down the number googolplex in any other number system than decimal? I mean, like, base16 or base32? --Daniel A. A. 22:23, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes; You can write it in the latin script, and it only takes ten characters! Nagelfar 22:29, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Demonstration, please? --Daniel A. A.

Serious? OK - Googolplex, that's it! I suppose the latin script is kind of a numeric system (Roman numerals), that's not exactly using it properly as such though, but it works, since you can understand it, right? Nagelfar 22:35, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

A googolplex is too large to write in Roman Numerals. Roman Numerals are written with letters for numbers of the form 10...0 or 50...0. This means you are out of new letters to use for larger numbers when you reach 5 trillion (the 26th number of this kind); which is much smaller. Georgia guy 22:39, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Not really. what if you don't do it that way. instead of making a new number every five you could do like (pretend that Y is the roman numeral for a billion) YYYYYYYYYM (9 billion 1 thousand) or yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyXI (33 billion 11). or you can combine letters for roman numerals, like Æ or something.--74.138.102.134 21:53, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh I'm aware of that, which is why I didn't attempt to do so. Though it isn't too big to write out in the latin script, which was what I demonstrated just now ;-P Nagelfar 22:41, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

But still, your answer defeats the purpose of spending your night time smoking cigarettes and entertaining yourself by thinking about big numbers... --Daniel A. A. 22:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

You're right on that one. Though it does beg the question of how we come to an such a unyieldly large, arbitarily selected number and assign a value to it by other means, like a word, even though we can't exactly grasp it much outside of a perceivable abstraction; even if all the while it does have an objective value given to it. Which brings up my new question below about something like our brain's associations and the amount of possible different such connections had in relation to such large abstract-yet-concrete numbers. Nagelfar 22:47, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, your thesis does not interest me much. I would like someone (Taxman in particular) to tell me if it would be possible to write down a googolplex in a number system similar to -- but not the same as -- the decimal WITHOUT having to use up all the particles in the universe. Hexadecimal, or base32, maybe. And I mean in *that particular* way of understanding numbers. Not by assigning them names and using those as the means of referring to that number. I do not carry abstract thought well, and therefore revert to logic --Daniel A. A. 21:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

You'd need to use a very large base. If you write it in "base googolplex" it is just 10, if you write it in base 10¹⁰⁹⁹ it's 10000000000. With 'small' bases such as 16 or 32 you'd still need absurdly many digits. --Army1987 14:46, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

For base googolplex to be theoretically usable, we would need a googolplex different glyphs, or ways to arrange a small set of points. How large would this set have to be? JIP | Talk 07:41, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Adding on, it is estimated that the distance to the cosmic light horizon is approximately 130 ym, and to the farthest quasars about 100 ym, so work it out from there, if googolplexs length is that of the universe, perhapes 150 ym would be my guess at most. - Annonymous Dissident.

Your universe is very small, Mr Dissident (or can I call you Anon?). 212.137.63.86 (talk) 11:06, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I find that this site is incorrect. It states that a googolplex is equal to ten to the power of a googol, but also says that it is 1 followed by a googol zeros. Both are wrong. A googolplex is actually a googol times a googol. That means its equal to 10 to the power of 200 or 1 followed by 200 zeros. Look it up. Skittles (talk) 16:44, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

10 to the power of googol and 1 followed by googol zeroes is the same thing. 10^1 = 1 followed by 1 zero. 10^2 is 1 followed by 2 zeroes, etc. Of course, this is only true if the number system is assumed to be base ten. In base googolplex, a googolplex is simply written as 10. 97.82.86.146 (talk) 19:33, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

googolplex

i thought that googolplex was googol to the power of googol. what would googolplex to the power of a googolplex be! :O

please tell me if i was correct

Well, no, the article is correct. Do a google search if you would like to verify that from other sources. See [1] which lists Kasner's paper that probably relates the creation of the number too. Googolplex to the power of a googolplex would be just that. One could also make up a name for it, but googolplex is already absurd enough which was Kasner's point. - Taxman 21:18, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

I believe a Googol is simply a 1 followed by 100 zeros. However, 10 to the 100th power is called a Googolplex, written as 10(^Googol). To write a Googol using this notation (1 with 100 zeros): 10(¹⁰⁰). So a Googolplex is a very large number indeed, and as Taxman says concerning raising the power of a Googolplex, 10(^{Googol Googol}) we already border on absurdity. ~ jbm (talk) 13:14, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Evidence?

Is there any evidence that this googolplexian thing is real? Very few google hits for it and it seems the page is just a promotional page and every link to it is just supporting that. In any case it seems like a pure web neologism. The only reason googleplex is remotely notable is that a known mathemetician named it. I'm not buying googolplexian is notable enough. I'm going to remove it and put it up on VFD if no good evidence is found. - Taxman 12:15, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Someone beat me to it, and the consensus was it was a made up term, and was deleted. - Taxman 22:07, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Googolplexian

Georgia Guy is being <personal attack removed>. I added something to this article about googolplexian and Georgia guy removed it and called it vandalism. It's not vandalism, but a true internet invention. It's not scientific however. Georgia Guy is just being <personal attack removed>.

Yes there is. It is just a made up internet word. Just read above. The consensus was to delete the page on the term googolplexian since it is a made up word. You can read the discussion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Googolplexian. Since that term's page was deleted and that has been discussed on this talk page, adding the phrase again is improper and it is perfectly acceptable to revert edits that repeatedly add it. - Taxman 19:19, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Taxman, googolplex was a made up word too. Do you think googolplex just popped into existence or something?

Of course googleplex is a made up term. The only reason it is even slightly worthy of its own article or mention at all though is that a well respected mathematician coined the word. And for a specific purpose: to show that an absurdly large number is still not infinity. So that still means a word with no real useage like googolplexian should not be covered in Wikipedia. Sorry, your pet word is not needed here. Go work on something else useful. - Taxman 02:38, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

You are correct Taxman, however "Go work on something else useful.", is uncalled for. Be polite, and courteous. Malamockq 18:42, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Might I add that, depending on how you think of it, a googolplex is actually bigger than infity because as it is, it is soooo ridiculously large a number, and the human brain can only conceive so much, so what you imagine infinity as is actually smaller than a googolplex. Just throwin it out there. - Mannington 10:01, October 1, 2005 (UTC)

You're joking, right?Gary D Robson 04:25, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, not quite. In a way, it's easier to think of infinity than it is a googolplex. Suppose you have a compression algorithm that compresses a one followed by infinite zeroes to O and prefixes everything else with 1. Infinity is easy to represent this way, but a googolplex isn't. --67.172.99.160 18:16, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

So create a compression algorithm that represents one googolplex as 0 and prefixes everything else with a 1. Presto! A googolplex is smaller again. This "logic" makes no sense. Infinity (even aleph null) is infinitely larger than a googolplex, or even than ten to the googolplex power. Mathematically, infinity doesn't mean "some big number." It has a specific meaning that Mannington clearly isn't familiar with. Gary D Robson 13:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

WEll I personally have never heard of googolplexian, but other mathematical terms denoting larger numbers than googolplex (excluding really, really, really high numbers like Grahams Number etc.), such as Googolplexplex (10 by the power of googolplex), Googolduplex ( 10 by the power of googolplexplex ), Googoltriplex (10 by the power of Googolduplex) etc. I think Googolplexian is improper. - Annonymous Dissident

gooogolplex is not gooogol to the googol power the thing un top is correct(nobody will use this kind of number in mathematics) lol —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.231.75.162 (talk) 04:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

what the hell

When you type "define:googolplex" into google.com, one of the results is a quote from this page claiming it's From the Latin words googis meaning "a lot" and plex meaning "even more." this is stupid and not funny.

Yes, that is quite odd, I'm not sure how to notify goole to fix it. Perhaps put a request on the Village pump to find someone that knows how to take care of it. - Taxman 22:07, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I think it's funny, and given my opinion that "googol" itself is a stupid term (which is probably why it captured the popular imagination) I don't mind this bit of pseudo history. ilan 01:32, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I second that it's funny. Trust me.--Hawkian (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Wait, Google has wikipedia-like talk pages? I guess I'm on the wrong site. 68.43.151.226 (talk) 15:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, the term (googol) was coined by a 9 year old.Zheliel (talk) 07:56, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Hey, I've got an idea! You have a problem with Google, tell Google, not Wikipedia. 75.36.213.172 (talk) 00:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Your absolutely correct. Creating this talk section is very offending for some apparent reason, and wastes precious information bytes for Wikipedia. It also wastes precious seconds for people to read and hurts our brain because we don't want to think about Google's problems when we don't have to. 66.183.59.211 (talk) 03:50, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Larger numbers with fewer symbols

The last sentence shows an example which purports to be a larger number expressed with fewer symbols, yet there are nine 9's in the example, and only seven symbols in the representation of one googolplex. Am I missing something? Gary D Robson 21:39, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

"googolplex" has 10 letters, however, I changed it to address your correct observation. -ilan

Googol/Google

There seems to be inconsistency between the terms Googolplex and Googleplex. I thought the former was the only correct way of spelling it. I've edited the article and replaced all instances of Googleplex with Googolplex - revert if there's a good reason for the inconsistency. mike[F] 11:38, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Not sure how your edits affected the article, but the Googleplex is Google-the-search-engine's campus. --Hawkian (talk) 21:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it is because your spell-check doesn't know the word "googolplex." mine doesn't even recognize googol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.183.59.211 (talk) 03:54, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Takahiro the rice writer

Taking a generous estimate of the radius of the solar system to be 100AU (1 AU is the distance from the earth to the sun), using a simple spherical model for the shape of the solar system, and if we have a Japanese rice writer (called Takahiro), who can write zeros at 0.01mm on very thin paper 0.01mm thick, we can work out just how many zeros Takahiro can fit into the solar system. (To be clear, we are stating that Takahiro can write a zero on a piece of paper 0.01mm x 0.01mm x 0.01mm, so along a strip of paper 1 mm long, he can write 100 zeros)

1 AU = 149597870.691 kilometers 100 AU = 14959787069.1 Km = 14,959,787,069,100 m = 1,495,978,706,910,000 cm = 14,959,787,069,100,000 mm

= 1,495,978,706,910,000,000 zeros is how many zeros Takahiro can write along 100 AU, the radius of the solar system.

So, we can get the volume of a sphere using V = (4/3)(PI)(r^3), so we can measure the volume of the solar system in Takahiro zeros as about 14,023,772,097,665,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000 zeros; just over 14 octodecillion zeros.

So, our heroic Takahiro didn't get close to writing out the googolplex.

Let's now imagine that he managed to get particularly good at writing small zeros, and could write a hundred thousand zeros along a strip of paper 1mm and 0.00001mm thick. Hey, he can still only fit in 14,023,772,097,665,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 zeros; - a paltry 14,023 vigintillion zeros.

Just to let you know just how small Takahiro's handwriting needs to be to fit the googolplex into the solar system (and why it is a safe bet), he needs to fit 89.5 quadrillion zeros along a millimeter of paper that is 89.5 quadrillionth of a millimeter thick.

Essentially, he needs to write a zero at every 112 femtometers. - significantly smaller than the distance between the carbon atoms in diamond, which are spaced at 142000 femtometers center to center. In other words, his 'paper' would need to be 1000 times more dense than diamond.

Other googol terms

Can we have Googoloctodeciplex redirect here? Uncle Ed 02:11, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

....What is that? I've never heard of the word. Umma Kynes 17:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ummakynes (talk • contribs)

BTTF

User:Taxman has removed the BTTF reference from the "In popular culture" section, claiming BTTF is not important to this topic. [2] If it isn't important, neither are Google and The Simpsons, and in fact that entire section should be removed. - Sikon 17:20, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I agree with Sikon that the Back to the Future entry is OK. If this were an entry on the Wolfram site then, no, Simpsons and BTTF would be incorrect here. However, the heading "In Popular Culture" is rather clear, in my opinion, so I think BTTF is fine here. Also, this page isn't very big, and it's not like there are zillions of references to googolplex in popular culture that threaten to overwhelm this page. Other pages on scientific or technical issues also have references to popular culture. I think the entry should be re-inserted. Kaimiddleton 23:40, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

I concur with Sikon and Kaimiddleton. If the section grows to the point where it's overwhelming the rest of the article, then we can reconsider. In the meantime, I think Back to the Future is a perfectly reasonable op culture reference. Gary D Robson 17:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Are you guys kidding? These pop culture references are an abomination, and yes they should all go, but the back to the future one was the worst of the bunch. None of them are important to the topic. So what if they got mentioned in x pop culture show. If there are any pop culture mentions in Wikipedia, it should be in the Simpsons article or a list of Simpsons references or something like that. And no it's not the end of the world for an article like this where there isn't much else to say, but when the pop culture sections take over topics where they are simply not important it is a problem. - Taxman ^Talk 18:19, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. I think it's important to note that the word isn't just used by a tiny subset of the population (i.e. mathematicians), but has gained a certain amount of recognition amongst the larger public, to the extent that it can be used in a movie or TV show. Certainly I don't think the article should focus on the pop culture references, but the fact that they're there should be noted. That's why I don't think a link to the Clutch (band) album Live at the Googolplex would be worthwhile, but those that are already there look fine to me. Confusing Manifestation 00:57, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

We have to remove it!!! It wastes valuable bytes for Wikipedia, (although it wastes more being in the history,) and it takes too much time for our laggy 90s' computers to load! And there are also many more reasons to remove it, although I can't think of any since there are none.66.183.59.211 (talk) 04:00, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

A gigoogol is a googolplex of a googolplex of numbers or a googolplex to the power of googolplex.

Someone added:

A gigoogol is a googolplex of a googolplex of numbers or a googolplex to the power of googolplex.

a) gigoogol shows zero hits via google search; it is not an established term.
b) "a googolplex of a googolplex" and "googolplex to the power of googolplex" are not the same thing.
I removed the sentence.
Kaimiddleton 00:07, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Finite cardinal number

What's the need for this obvious statement? Are we gonna add it to any article about a natural number? --Army1987 22:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. From a mathematical perspective it doesn't seem to add much. I think a discussion of how to generate big numbers (e.g. with the busy beaver function) and how that relates to discussions of higher and higher orders of infinity might be pertinent in a discussion of googolplex, but I don't think simply mentioning that it is a cardinal number is of much interest. Why don't you go ahead and remove the sentence. Kaimiddleton 19:32, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I hope nobody minds....

I wrote out the numerously-charactered short scale name for the googolplex. Although it's probably not written out in this way anywhere on the web, it can be verified using the method shown on this page: http://www.isthe.com/chongo/tech/math/number/howhigh.html

I think this idea is kind of cute, though Georgia guy disagreed and removed it. It at least illustrates how those short scale names relate to googolplex in a very clear way. It also provides a reason to link to that page given by HumboldtCA. The only objection I have is that the long name doesn't wrap in my browser window (I use Opera). Maybe it would look better if there was a space between each part. Any thoughts from other people? BTW, HumboldtCA, you can sign your edits with a timestamp by putting four tildes (~) in succession and the wiki server will fill in the signature for you. Kaimiddleton 01:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

So it would look like the following section? Hmmm, kinda long .... Kaimiddleton 09:44, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Relation to -illion number names

Using the short scale, a googolplex is equal to one Tre millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia millia trecentretriginmillia millia trecentretriginmillia trecenduotrigintillion.

IMO that's as silly as useless. Maybe a link to an external page would be ok, but putting that name into the article is pretty ridiculous. --Army1987 14:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

P.S. This is also wrong, a googleplex equals 10×1000^{333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333,333}, so the leading one above has to be changed to ten. BTW, this is shorter: ten (where "-millia^3" means "-millia-millia-millia").--Army1987 14:34, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Googol and Googolplex writen out

There's a new external link:

• Gogolplex.com Both a googolplex and a googol written out

I find this to be rather weak. Anyone else agree? Kaimiddleton 07:56, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Especially the "etc." at the end. Someone who could afford to buy a domain name but didn't know what to do with it.--Army1987 15:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed it because it wasn't what it said it was (because of the "etc."). Gary D Robson 17:17, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

A googolplex cannot be written out; it would produce a line of digits 4.7 * 10^69 times the known universe's measurement according to the article in an unreadable 1-point font. Georgia guy 20:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes. That's the point. Any site claiming to have a googleplex written out is obviously not what it says it is, right? That's why I deleted the link. Gary D Robson 21:14, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a javascript could in theory do that. Obviously to any practical outcome it would fundamentally be as if it continued to write 0s until the user closes the page or the computer runs out of memory and hangs. --Army1987 19:21, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, currently I have a Python program running trying to print a .txt file of a Googolplex. Lol, it's taking 100% CPU usage and I'm about to go to sleep and see if it's done writing it in the morning... Well, good luck to me (or my computer I should say). I don't think it's entirely impossible cause one Python program I wrote could write 80 0's per line and was writing full pages of about 20 lines at around 50 pages per second (until the heat death of the earth or i told it to stop) I eventually made it stop although not sure exactly how many zero's it had printed. If anyone needs the Python code post on here and I'll notice it eventually. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.74.75.177 (talk) 08:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Brain fiber connections

OK, I once saw a programme on public television that said the human brain has more possible permutations than there is matter in the universe, if anyone knows where they can find the statistic to this info (I believe it because it was on PBS), it would be interesting to know how this relates to, if not a googolplex, than maybe just a Googol? Nagelfar 22:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Maybe PBS? 67.124.149.69 15:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

There are 10^11 neurons in the human brain. The factorial of that is approx. 10^1.05×1012, which is more than a googol but less than a googolplex. But that has no physical meaning IMO, as there are "only" 10^14 synapses. --Army1987 14:57, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Google refers to its headquarters as the "Googleplex".

Googol should also became the actual name of Google. But because of a spelling mistake, when they were registering the domain, it became Google. I have heard it in an interview in the german TV about Google.

--wall_unit

I knew that www.googol.com was already in use... I'll check this out some other day. --Army1987 22:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

How can we be sure that there is less than a googolplex of particles in the universe?

Did somebody count them? Is there even a way to count them? Who, in their right mind, would count such minuscule objects? It would take them a googillion (I'll let you define that one) eons. If the scientific community claims that the universe is expanding, wouldn't there be a point where the number of particles in this universe surpase a googleplex? What is Infinity minus a googolplex?

I make no claim that the above statements are verifiable. I'm just questioning the verifiablity of the amount of particles in the universe as they pertain to the amount of a googolplex.

No-one actually counts them in the way you're suggesting. Instead, the number of particles is estimated by first estimating the number of particles in, say, our solar system (which can be done directly on the Earth, but can be inferred by gravitational interactions between the planets and the sun), then scaling this up by the number of stars in our galaxy, then the number of galaxies in the observable universe. There are a lot of assumptions along the way (e.g. the fraction of matter in association with visible stars), but they're not unreasonable, and have error bars. From this one can determine that we're quite a bit short of a googolplex particles. It's not a certainty of course, but it's better than a complete guess. One of the outstanding issues concerns the nature (and extent) of what are known as dark matter and dark energy. These seem to make up the bulk of the universe, but aren't known about directly, only inferred.

Regarding universe expansion, it's growing in volume, not content. As far as we are aware, there are no (net) particle-creation events occurring in the universe, so the number is not growing as such. Hope this helps. --Plumbago 07:19, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, please note: were talking about the number of particles in the visible universe (see Observable universe). This extends only as far as light has travelled since the big bang. So it's a sphere whose center is planet earth with a radius of approximately 13.7 billion light years. It's not too hard to do calculations on a sphere of this volume, and the answer for the number of particles (basically, protons, neutrons and electrons) in that sphere is well less than a googol (let alone a googolplex!). Kaimiddleton 18:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm ... not that it matters too much, but the visibile universe is actually bigger than that. Because the universe has also been expanding since the big bang, that 13.7 billion light year radius has expanded to a radius of 78 billion light years [3]. But that modest expansion would not allow us to fit a google elementary particles into the visible universe. Kaimiddleton 14:32, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Remember that a googolplex is really big. A googolplex particles wouldn't even fit in the Universe, even if it were full (indeed, almost all space is empty).

What if the universe isnt finite, then anything can fit in it?

The thing that doesn't make sense is if the universe is only 13.7 Billion years old, how can light have been traveling longer than that? Especially over 64 billion years longer than the known universe exists. Even if the explosion blew particles 1000 times greater than the speed of light, the light emitted by that star would take it ever how long it took to get to us. Even figuring Earth as the center of the universe, and the diameter of the universe being 78 billion light years, we would have to be looking at stars 39 billion yrs old in each direction to see them. If the age of the universe is correct, then we could only see stars 13.7 billion light years in any direction. And like the previous guy said, who said the universe is finite? If it is, what's at the end? A big wall? I doubt it.

I think this article assumes too much that the big bang is a fact. It's perhaps the dominant theory, but it's far from being a fact. I also have epistemological problems with a finite universe... --Childhood's End 19:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This section's estimate of the number of particles in the observable universe contradicts Orders of magnitude (numbers)#1042_to_10100 by a few orders of magnitude. 67.87.166.224 20:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

The Big Bang is not considered a fact but is considered a theory, and theories aren't just random guesses that scientists take about something. A theory is based off of testable fact. Law vs. Theory... Law - The observable (what is happening(ie "I see an apple fall out of a tree")). Theory - The educated guess based on testable fact to explain a Law (Reason for the naming - Theory of the Law of Conservation (ie The apple fell because the gravitation force between the apple and the earth attracted them toward each other (What goes up must come down))) and instead of thinking of the universe as finate or infinate or any other -inate you want to add how about do right what everyone did wrong when they were claiming the earth was square... Maybe the earth isn't square..... maybe it's round... well maybe the universe isn't 3-dimensional at all. Maybe it has the same bending function that the earth has that is barely noticable when standing on it (or in this case "existing in it" if you will) So that if you travel your 13.7 billion light years in one direction maybe you end up in the same place you started. None of the above is directly linked to the topic of the googolplex but more indirectly by adding too or possibly clearing up some statements in the above text written by others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.74.75.177 (talk) 08:36, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Googolplex in the real world

I am convinced that it is not possible to have a googolplex anything in the real world. Consider what it would take for something that would have a googolplex different states. Assume every person on the Earth has 200 computers, each with a memory of a million megabytes. The total amount of memory in all these computers is approximately 2^83 bits. Because the log2 of a googolplex is approximately 3*googol, we would still need about 3*2^17 = 393216 times this much memory. It is theoretically possible that there are that many potentially habitable planets in the universe, but not nearly enough population or resources to build that many computers. JIP | Talk 11:31, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

What about in the other Universe? You know, Universe B. They've got a googol amount in population.

-G

Well, yeah, but that's why universe B sucks. This one's where it's at, yo --Lenoxus 02:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Googolplex impossible to write down? What about writing in a word document say 100 zeros, and copying and pasting, then to copy and paste that, and in doing so multiply many times over the number of zeroes being written down? This is writing down zeroes many hundreds of times, even thousands of times faster than 2 zeroes per second. Possibly even millions of times faster, if all one's time was dedicated. (bear in mind that the document need not be printed)Please comment on this.- Annonymous Dissident

All right, so here's the reason as far as I understand it: it's not a mere limit of time, or even computer storage, as may be constraints in doing other math problems. It's a matter of space. A googol already exceeds the number of atoms in the universe by a great deal. Even if we decided that each atom could somehow be interpeted as 1 or 0, that still wouldn't be enough. Hence, even the digital realm doesn't have "inifinte" space, as much as it would appear so compared to paper. A discussion of this occurs in Carl Sagan's Cosmos. --Lenoxus 02:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand how the digital realm is finite...really. Ok eventually, the computing device would run out of space etc to continue writing zeroes down, but calculations infer that a very advanced computer or even perhapes a supercomputer would be able to hold an imense number of zeroes - i think they take up less than even a single bit. You do the working. And if you talk of constraits in tghe actual digital realm, I cannot understand how it cannot be infinite. It does not take up space as such, other than the area of the screen. It can simply continue, if you continue to update you comp. It could virtually, perhapes litterally, be infinite in possible space.

Anonymous Dissident 08:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I want to say, "good job getting an account, Dissident," but it appears you didn't sign correctly (What you want is a link to User:Anonymous Dissident, not Anonymous Dissident). No need to worry. Just use four tildes ("~ ~ ~ ~", but without the spaces in between) to do so.

I think it's possible you may be confusing the fact that a computer can "express" a googolplex with the notion that it can "hold" one. That is to say, a computer can do any number of calculations with the "idea" of (10^100^100), but it can't actualy store the entirety of the number even if we decide that each zero takes 1% of a bit. Of course, this is all a reflection on the enormity of googleplex rather than the "tininess" of software, which is still capable of huge. incredible things human beings couldn't dream of. I refer you to this page and this function to which that page refers and (possibly) forever hold my peace. --Lenoxus 19:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

And, interestingly, Dissident's caveat about the "area of the screen" is completely irrelevant. Even if doing the calculations while not displaying them on any screen at all (as Roadrunner might do ;>), which would speed the process up considerably, there is not enough LOGICAL space to store a file containing a googolplex anywhere. Compression, you say? Operating at the most efficient we have available, even compressing the file to 0.1% would still take up far more space than we've got, as Lenoxus notes. But you can still try if you'd like: the program in C noted above is available in a lightweight .exe, if you're interested: http://fpx.de/fp/Fun/Googolplex/plex.exe . Have a good time :P --66.229.208.133 (talk) 21:35, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Year and other inconsistencies

The beginning of this article says that "googol" was coined in 1938, but Googol says 1920 — what's going on? Also, they should be consistent on whether the nephew Milton also had a part to play or not... --Lenoxus 01:55, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

See Talk:Googol. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

In popular culture

Shouldn't entries to this section be of interesting or unusual uses of the term, rather than a list of every time it's used in its standard sense in any book, television series, film, etc.? Thus the Simpsons' punning use of it as the name of a cinema is appropriate, but "so-and-so used the term 'googolplex' in this novel" isn't. Imagine a similar list for the word "billion". --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, but The Simpsons episode is the only reference in popular culture I can think of. Maybe you know some others? If so, than we can consider having section for this. Usually I think references made in popular culture are for things that have a lot of them and are well known more than a googolplex. I only heard of a googolplex the other day, and nobody else I know does. This make it not a well known enough thing to be referenced a lot of times in popular culture. Sorry if none of this made sense, I still need to speak at a greater level. Chumbakabakabakabakabaka 18:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

How to write down a complete googolplex

what if everybody in the world had a computer and did the paste-and-copy thing with as many zeros that would take up all of their computer space. then we spend up to years making a supercomputer that would take all of the zeros (and the one) and put them together would it be anywhere near a googleplex? or even if every planet in the universe did the exact same thing and we spend millenia making a super supercomputer to compile all of those zeros (and the one), using all of the computer space ever would it be even 1% of a googleplex?--74.138.102.134 22:09, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The physical space taken up by the print of the number- using a 1pt font as we know it- still exceeds the amount of space in the universe. If there was another universe, though, maybe.--66.229.208.133 (talk) 21:37, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Just think of it this way...Will a googlplex every be printed? ...NO! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Somebody2D (talk • contribs) 15:03, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok everyone keeps saying that 1pt font exceeds the amount of space in the universe... well my argument is... are you trying to print it on rocks trees or dirt even? no you are not you are trying to print it on a hard disk drive which can take your 1pt font and condense it to an un-readable (probably finately small) say.. .0001 font and the fact that it doesn't take the same amount of materials to create a hard disk drive as you get in space out of it makes your argument about "even at 1pt font" illogical and honestly i believe there is plenty enough space on a 1 tetrabyte hard drive to hold 10^10^100 0's —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.74.75.177 (talk) 08:50, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

A terabyte is 2^40 bytes, a byte is 8 bits. The next level of storage, petabyte, is 2^10 terabytes. Assuming that you could making each bit one digit of a googolplex, and based on old predictions found at http://www.lesk.com/mlesk/ksg97/ksg.html estimating maybe 12500 petabytes of new storage each year, that's only on the order of about 10^19 digits you could store per year. Still way below a googolplex. Umma Kynes 18:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ummakynes (talk • contribs)

Googolplex is also a toy

They came in sets of snap-together regular polygons, with rods and plates and other miscellaneous pieces.

I had two sets myself when I was little.

This is the only image I can find on the net, though: http://msnucleus.org/membership/html/k-6/as/scimath/2/assm2_7d.html

128.189.234.46 18:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)willyolio

The biggest number?

I remember reading some book about strange things that was discussing the googolplex. I think it mentioned a large number which would consist of (1 followed by a billion zeroes), with an exponent of (1 followed by a billion zeroes)... Anyone ever heard of this? --Childhood's End 19:13, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

- See Graham's Number.     —  Burningmace 23:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Hey thanks for answering, I did not expect any ! I knew about Graham's number. Was notably wondering if it was bigger than the number I talked above, if it can even be determined... --Childhood's End 23:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Your number is less than $3\uparrow \uparrow 5=3^{3^{3^{3^{3}}}}=3^{3^{7625597484987}}\,\!$, so much smaller than Graham's Number. Note also that your number is 10 to the power (1 followed by (a billion plus 9) zeroes), so a large base has little effect compared with a large exponent.--Patrick 13:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

In the notation of Large_number#Standardized_system_of_writing_very_large_numbers

googolplex = 10^^2@100 = 10^^3@2 = 10^^4@0.301

and your number is 10^^2@1,000,000,009 < 10^^3@9.1 < 10^^4.

Patrick 14:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! But are you sure that the base of my number (1 followed by a billion zeroes) translates into a base 10 and adding 9 zeroes to the exponent? Wouldnt that simply be 1 billion instead of 1 followed by 1 billion zeroes? --Childhood's End 18:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

When the base 10 to the power 1 billion is changed to 10, the exponent is multiplied by 1 billion, so we get $10^{10^{1,000,000,009}}$.--Patrick 23:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The largest number is $2*3*5*7*9*11*13*17*...*(2^{86243}-1)+1$, or $p+1$. It might exceed $10^{10^{100}}$... 81.195.26.66 (talk) 22:32, 25 September 2010 (UTC) Erudit32

Representation

If you were to try to write 10^100 numbers down, you couldn't do it. We discuss the possible ways of writing it down, most of which fail. However, think about base-n representations. We use 0 and 1 in binary, 0-9 in decimal, 0-F in hexadecimal, 0-9,a-z,A-Z, backslash and equals in base-64.

How about base-10^1000? Symbols do not have to be written down or remembered in order to have a meaning, therefore you would not need a dictionary of all 10^1000 symbols (impossible to do). So then you write down 10^(10^100) as a base-10^1000 number. Once you'd written down the number, only you would know that it meant a googolplex (you could not remember the symbol set described as you don't have enough synapses or even atoms in your brain to do so, nor are there enough particles in the brains of every living thing known to man). There would be no set structure of its notation. It's not practical or really worth doing, but it's possible. But then, just look at this article. I just represented the googolplex without writing it out... 10^100. I could also write it out using Tetration, or Steinhaus–Moser notation.

I don't see what the fuss is about regarding "writing down" the number, as you can do it easily by using an alternate notation. The number 10^(10^100) cannot be expressed in decimal notation, but can easily be expressed as 10^(10^100). What is the fascination? Why do people obsess over the decimal notation?

Burningmace 23:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

If the base is large enough we need only one "digit", but in base-10^1000 the number googolplex still is a 1 with 10^97 zeros.--Patrick 22:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

just because, its such an enourmously gigantic number! 125.238.16.70 03:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

"The factual accuracy of this section is disputed"

Who added this tag? Can someone please delineate their complaints before adding the "The factual accuracy of this section is disputed" tag to the page. Kaimiddleton 00:29, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

That was done by the author of the remark

This section's estimate of the number of particles in the observable universe contradicts Orders of magnitude (numbers)#1042_to_10100 by a few orders of magnitude. 67.87.166.224 20:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

above. I changed 80 to 85 and removed the tag.--Patrick 06:27, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Messed Up Formatting

Hey, the formatting on the talk page and the actual page is messed up. Some code or something is causing lines of text to be to close together vertically. I don't know how to fix it, but I thought I'd bring it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.255.202.210 (talk) 04:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

This formatting isn't obvious to me. It could be that the spacing is irregular, due to the amount of superscripts and other math markup, but this is normal rendering for most browsers. Can you provide names and version numbers of both your operating system and browser? +mt 07:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Googolplex in Popular culture

The term is used throughout the book "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The top of the page is a little messed up.

The top of the page refers to other pages. The "Googleplex" and I think something else. I'm not sure how to fix it. Somebody please fix it. --Taylortheturtle (talk) 03:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Googoogolplex?

I was just wondering if there has even been any talk of a number continuing in this tradition- namely, one followed by a googolplex zeros. I may be wrong, but I don't think this number could even be expressed in scientific notation as a googolplex can, though it could by some of the crazier notations that I don't understand. Would there be any merit to such a thing? Would it be larger or comparable to Graham's Number?

Oh, and as you can see, I've suggested a name if there isn't one yet. :P --Hawkian (talk) 21:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't make up words in Wikipedia. Georgia guy (talk) 21:58, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a talk page. Assuming you were serious, that is, I have violated no Wikipedia policies and posed a legitimate and rational question related to the article at hand framed by a humorous suggestion. Thank you for your insight on the topic of the Googolplex, though.--Hawkian (talk) 19:37, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Missed the discussion up there about the Googolplexian. Sorry; don't bother responding now. -_- --Hawkian (talk) 21:14, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Reading this talk page someone mentions the gogolplexplex, and a very quick skim of google appears to back up the word, but IDK, I cba checking it all up, just fyi.--217.28.1.213 (talk) 00:29, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

A googolplex raised to a googolplex you mean like (10^10^100)^(10^10^100) that would be a horrifically large number 206.74.75.177 (talk) 09:00, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

FIX IT

It's an insult to the intelligence of the entire human race of a page on wikipedia defining "googolplex" says that the number can't even fit on a piece of paper in our ENTIRE UNIVERSE. That's stupid and it should be fixed because it's wrong -.-

--- It won't fit because there is not enough matter in the known universe to make that many numbers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.209.130.32 (talk) 18:35, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

One of the numbers in the article is wrong

The start of the article reads:

1 googolplex

= 10^googol

= 10^(10100)

= 1.e+1000

This is correct except the last line. The last line is equal to (10^10)^100 = 10^1000 = 1.e+1000 This is not the same as 10^(10^100), which is googolplex.

1.e+1000 is a 1 with 1000 zeroes behind it. Googolplex is a 1 with a googol zeroes behind it, as the article correctly notes.

FrankSamuelson (talk) 17:56, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

---

As of today (nov 12, 2009) the line was "= 1e+100" which I removed because it's false. Fabricebaro (talk) 21:13, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrarily long numbers

This section, except perhaps the googol multiplex and the Turing machine, is absolutely useless and is bound to be a one-upping competition of "who can make the biggest number". I think that it should be removed to prevent this from happening. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.125.94.74 (talk) 04:26, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

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