A Googol is defined as the number 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. Or:
10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
This is rather hard to punch into a calculator, so let me explain
how it is done by scientists and mathemagicians.
In standard math language this is expressed as 1e+100.
The lower case "e" means that you multiply the number in front of the "e" by 10 raised to the number after the "e".
Hmmmm, still confusing. Well, lets start with some substitutions.
The variable A will be a number less then but not equal to 10 and greater than or equal to 1.
The variable B will be a positive or negative integer.
So, Ae+B equals A multiplied by the result of 10 raised to the B power.
If B is negative, then the expression is less than, but not equal to 1, and greater than zero.
Well, I hope that helps. Now, back to the Googol.
What does 1e+100 mean in real numbers? It does mean a lot. Let me show you.
If we were to print out say, an asterisk, a Googol number of times, how much paper would it take?
1 sheet of paper could contain 80 columns by 66 lines. That equals 5280 asterisks per page.
1 Googol divided by 5280 = 1.893939393939e+96 pages.
WHAT!! The heck you say! What does that mean?
Well, if we were to assume that there were 267 pages in each inch thick portion of
a stack of paper (yes, I really measured and counted a stack of 20# paper), then the
pile of paper that the Googol’s worth of asterisks was printed upon would be 7.09340596981e+93 inches thick.
Or 5.911171641509e+92 feet high.
Or 1.119540083619e+89 miles high.
Or 1.204547857191e+81 Astronomical Units high (or would it be long?)
(An Astronomical Unit is defined as the mean radius of our
planet Earth’s orbit in the year 1900, or 9.294276495e+7 miles).
Or 1.904393854324e+76 light years long (yep, definitely long)
(a light year is NOT a year with half the calories, but all of the taste of the regular year.
It is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year. Or 6.325098426756e+4 AUs).
So, since the galaxy that we call home is approximately 100,000 Light Years
across, the pile of paper would cross it 1.904393854324e+71 times.
Talk about a paper trail!!
Well, what would something like this stack of papers weigh?
If a piece of paper weighed 1/500 of a pound then it would weigh 3.787878787878e+93 lbs.
Or 1.893939393939e+90 tons.
Since the planet we live on weighs 6.5873448e+21 tons,
then the stack would weigh the same as 1.437559025253e+65 Earths
Wow! Thats a lot of real estate agents!
How about the ink that was printed upon the papers? (we only counted the paper up to now)
That has to account for something
. Well, the ink cartridge in my printer is supposedly good for over a million characters.
If we assume that each cartridge contains 2 fluid ounces, then one character contains 2e-6 ounces.
Going back to our calculations of characters per page, we find that the ink on each page equals 1.056e-2 ounces.
So, the stack of paper would have 2.954545454545e+94 ounces of ink on it (or in it?).
Or 1.846590909091e+93 pints.
Or 9.232954545453e+92 quarts.
Or 2.308238636363e+92 gallons.
Or 4.196797520661e+90 barrels.
"Roll out the barrell!..."
Wait just a minute! All of this ink has to weigh something too!
O.K., well if "A pint's a pound the whole world ‘round", then the ink would weigh 1.846590909091e+93 lbs.
Or 9.232954545455e+89 tons.
Or 7.008100248111e+64 Earths
"Mom!! The cat knocked over the ink!!!"
But how much room does all the ink take up? Well, an ounce of fluid needs 1.83075 cubic inches of space.
So, the ink would be 5.409034090908e+94 cubic inches.
Or 3.130228061868e+91 cubic feet.
Or 2.126543215675e+80 cubic miles.
All of the Earth's oceans contain about 3.2228e+8 cubic miles of water.
So, the ink would need 6.598433708809e+71 Earths to hold it.
Or 2.648667535507e+56 cubic AUs
Or 1.046708098096e+42 cubic Light Years.
Is this perhaps the "Missing Dark Matter" the astrophysists are looking for? Hmmmm...
What about the paper? That certainly takes up room. Well, 8.5x11x1/500=.187 cubic inches.
So, the whole pile equals 3.541666666666e+95 cubic inches.
Or 2.049575617284e+92 cubic feet.
Or 1.392394112442e+81 cubic miles
Or 1.734264817697e+57 cubic AUs
Or 6.853517871123e+42 cubic light years
Origami anyone?
But wait! How long would it take a printer to print all of those darned asterisks?
Well, my printer can reach a speed of 4 pages per minute.
So, the print job would be done in 4.734848484848e+95 minutes.
Or 7.891414141412e+93 hours.
Or 3.288089225589e+92 days.
Or 4.697270322269e+91 weeks.
Or 1.105240075828e+91 months.
Or 9.210333965234e+89 years.
They say that the solar system has been around for approximately
4.6 billion years, and that it should last another 4.4 billion years.
So, the print job would be done in 1.023370440582e+80 solar lifetimes.
"Hello, Tech Support? My printer is making that funny noise again..."
Surely you say, one printer cannot print for that long!
Well, suppose that this printer will last for two years of continuous use.
That would mean that I would go through 4.605166982617e+89 printers.
At an average cost of $250.00 per each, I would have to spend $1.151291745654e+92 on printers.
If Paper costs $5.00 for 500 sheets, then I would spend $1.893939393939e+94 on paper.
If an ink cartridge costs $20.00, and prints 1 million characters, Then I would spend $2.e+95 on cartridges.
That’s a total of $2.19054523114e+95!!!!!!!
I wonder if that's tax deductable?
Well, just suppose that there was a pile of paper that large...
Any comments or additions can be directed to the author and creator of The Googol Papers, Mike Shook.
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This page last updated Friday, March 16, 2007