The term was coined in 1920 by 9-year-old Milton Sirotta (1911–1981), nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner.
Kasner used it to illustrate the difference between an unimaginably large number and infinity, and in this role it is sometimes used in teaching mathematics.
By Archimedes's calculation, the universe of Aristarchus (roughly 2 light years in diameter), if fully packed with sand, would contain 1063 grains.
If the much larger observable universe of today were filled with sand, it would still only equal 1095 grains.
[6] The decay time for a supermassive black hole of roughly 1 galaxy-mass (1011 solar masses) due to Hawking radiation is on the order of 10100 years.
[7] Therefore, the heat death of an expanding universe is lower-bounded to occur at least one googol years in the future.
However, a googol is well within the maximum bounds of an IEEE 754 double-precision floating point type without full precision in the mantissa.
Widespread sounding of the word occurs through the name of the company Google, with the name "Google" being an accidental misspelling of "googol" by the company's founders,[9] which was picked to signify that the search engine was intended to provide large quantities of information.
[10] In 2004, family members of Kasner, who had inherited the right to his book, were considering suing Google for their use of the term "googol";[11] however, no suit was ever filed.
[13][14] The word is notable for being the subject of the £1 million question in a 2001 episode of the British quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, when contestant Charles Ingram was discovered to have cheated his way through the show with the help of a confederate in the studio audience.