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For example, it's much easier to remember that a trillion is written with four sets
of three zeros than it is to count out 12 separate zeros. While you might think that
one's pretty simple, just wait until you have to count 27 zeros for an octillion or
303 zeros for a centillion. Then you will be thankful that you only have to
remember nine and 101 sets of three zeros, respectively.
Powers of 10 Shortcut
In mathematics and science, you can rely on the "powers of 10" to quickly express
exactly how many zeros are needed for these larger numbers. For example, a
shortcut for writing out a trillion is 1012 (10 to the power of 12). The 12 indicates
that the number needs a total of 12 zeros.
You can see how much easier these are to read than if there were just a bunch of
zeros:
A googol has 100 zeros and is expressed as 10100. It is often used to express any
large quantity, even though it is a quantifiable number. It makes sense that the
largest search engine that pulls a large quantity of data from the internet would
find this word useful.
The term googol was coined by the American mathematician Edward Kasner in
his 1940 book, "Mathematics and the Imagination." The story goes that Kasner
asked his then 9-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, what to name this ridiculously
long number. Sirotta came up with googol.
But why is a googol important if it's actually less than a centillion? Quite simply,
a googol is used to define a googolplex. A googolplex is 10 to the power of googol,
a number that boggles the mind. In fact, a googolplex is so large that there's really
no known use for it. Some say that it even exceeds the total number of atoms in
the universe.
In the "long scale," 1 billion is equal to 1 million million. For this number, you will
need a 1 followed by 12 zeros: 1,000,000,000,000 or 1012. The long scale was first
described by Genevieve Guitel in 1975. It is used in France and, for a time, was
accepted in the United Kingdom as well.