How Many Noughts ?

[kuiperbelt]

A googol is an inconceivable number made up of a '1' followed by one hundred (100) noughts.

[kuiperbelt]

My question is how many noughts does a googolplex contain??

[JimF]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googolplex

[bhg481]

a googol

[kuiperbelt]

Thanks JimF, but unfortunately 10 to the power of a googol doesnt really cut it for me. Could you please elaborate and give me a 'NUMBER' for the amount of zeros which occur in a googolplex, please!!

[bhg481]

A googolplex contains a googol zeros, and you know what a googol is.

[Tilly2]

200?

[ClareTG0ld]

You could say it has ten billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeroes.

[Old_Geezer]

Lots.
Obviously.

[Tilly2]

The answer is always 42.

[Gizmonster]

Aaah the good ol' "googol"
This was the million pound question on "who wants to be a millionaire" when Charles Ingram allegedly cheated. I was screaming the answer out at the TV before the answers even appeared.

As for a googolplex - if I remember correctly, there isn't enough room in the known universe to write the number out in its full form .... kinda puts into perspective just how big a googolplex is :)

[Khandro]

Piddling number, see my new thread,
https://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Science/Question1836780.html

[kuiperbelt]

Clare, firstly thanks for your input!! Assuming the American billion (the number 1 followed by 9 zeros) and if I am correct in saying that,

10,000,000,000,000,000,000 can be pronounced as ten billion, billion then you will agree this is a number which contains nineteen (19) zeros after the one (1).

Is it correct to say your number in post >17.40 is a one followed by one hundred zeros which is defined as a googol??

In other words 10^100 = Googol which is not a googolplex. 10^googol = googolplex. Please clarify!!

The question still stands. How many zeros does a googolplex contain??

[kuiperbelt]

bhg 481>17.34 Thanks for your contribution!!

But a googol is only one hundred zeros or written as ten to the power of one hundred (10^100). I believe a googolplex contains many many more zeros.

[ClareTG0ld]

Unless I miscounted, the number I gave is exactly equal to a googol. Therefore, it's exactly equal to the number of zeroes in a googolplex.

[douglas9401]

"As for a googolplex - if I remember correctly, there isn't enough room in the known universe to write the number out in its full form .... kinda puts into perspective just how big a googolplex is :)"

You could try writing smaller, or getting a bigger telescope.

[kuiperbelt]

>08.40

Even with my limited math knowledge LOL I am sorry but I cannot agree!!

For example:

10^1000 (ten to the power of a thousand) is a number which contains one thousand zeros after the one. Hopefully you will agree this is a number far greater than a googol, because a googol only has one hundred zeros after the one? But to my mind (10^1000) is still very much smaller than a googolplex. Hopefully you will agree with this statement too??

[ClareTG0ld]

// As for a googolplex - if I remember correctly, there isn't enough room in the known universe to write the number out in its full form ... //

Yup, you do remember correctly. Depending, perhaps, on what assumptions you make about the universe at small scales, this is probably true for any number on the order of a googol squared, though, which is much, much smaller than a googol!

What's perhaps even more impressive is that, if you assume that you could fit each digit into the tiniest possible space, and in the tiniest possible fraction of a second, scrubbed every digit out and instantly replaced them with the next lot... you still wouldn't get close until the Universe was about a billion billion billion.... billion times older, where there are about a (billion billion billion)^4 iterations of the word "billion" :P

I can't be bothered to check how precise this is but it's pretty close.

[ClareTG0ld]

ten billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion is a googol.

There are a googol zeroes in a googolplex.

There are ten billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion zeroes in a googolplex.

[kuiperbelt]

Clare>09.08 Thankyou! The penny has finally dropped LOL

[nescio]

just to give an idea of how big a googol is, consider a pack of playing cards:
if you shuffle it at 1 shuffle per second, it would take approximately 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times the age of the universe to arrange the cards in every possible order.
the number of orderings is only 1/100000000000000000000000000000000 of a googol