Googolplex

Googolplex (Latine: Gugolplex) est numerus immanis, qui sic efferri potest:

1 googolplex

= 10^googol

= 10^(10100)

= 10^{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}

De inventione

Sororis filius Eduardi Kasner, nomine Milton Sirotta, nomina googolplex et sane googol anno 1938 finxit natus 9 annos tantum.

Words of wisdom are spoken by children as 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. At the same time that he suggested "googol" he gave a name for a still larger number: "Googolplex." A googolplex is much larger than a googol, but is still finite, as the inventor of the name was quick to point out. It was suggested that a googolplex should be 1, followed by writing zeros until you get tired. This is a description of what would happen if one actually tried to write a googolplex, but different people get tired at different times and it would never do to have Carnera a better mathematician than Dr. Einstein, simply because he had more endurance. The googolplex then, is a specific finite number, with so many zeros after the 1 that the number is a googol . . . 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.

Verba sapientiae quidem a liberis tam saepe quam a scientiarum peritis. Nomen gugol a libero (Doctoris Kasner sororis filio) fictum est, qui rogatus est animo fingere nomen numeri perimmanis, id est centum zera post 1. Puer pro certo habebat hunc numerum infinitum non esse, itaque aeque certum habebat huic nomen esse debere. Simul ac gugol proposuit, dedit nomen numero etiam immaniori: gugolplex. Quod multo immanior est quam gugol, sed nihilominus finitus, sicut nominis inventor statim notavit. Visum est, ut gugolplex 1 sit, deinde quam plurima, donec defatigeris, scribas zera. Hoc describit id quod fiat, si quis re vera gugolplex scribere conetur, sed alii aliis temporibus defatigantur, neque umquam expediat Primum Carneram mathematicum Doctore Einstein meliorem haberi, illius patientiae durioris causa tantum. Gugolplex ergo est numerus peculiaris ac finitus, tot zeris post 1 sequentibus ut numerus ipse gugol sit . . . Magnitudinem huius immanis sed finiti numeri animo concipere potes ex eo, quod, etsi ad distantissimam stellam profectus omnes nebulas visites zeraque unciatim in via seras, satis loci ad eum scribendum non habeas.

– Eduardus Kasner et Iacobus R. Newman, Matematics and the Imagination

― convertit Ioscius

Googleplex

Sergius Brin et Laurentius Page primariam sedem suae societatis Google Googleplex nominavit. Id est iocus duplex: sane ducitur ab googolplex eodem modo nomen Google ab googol, sed quoque -plex ducitur ab Anglico verbo complex quid sibi vult "primaria sedes".

Nexus interni

• Googol
• Infinity