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In 1977, Gardner described the number in Scientific American, introducing it to the general public. At the time of its introduction, it was the largest specific positive integer ever to have been used in a published mathematical proof. The number was described in the 1980 Guinness Book of World Records, adding to its
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. To put in perspective the size of a googol, the mass of an electron, just under 10 −30 kg, can be compared to the mass of the visible universe, estimated at between 10 50 and 10 60 kg. [ 5 ]
Examples of large numbers describing real-world things: The number of cells in the human body (estimated at 3.72 × 10 13), or 37.2 trillion/37.2 T [3] The number of bits on a computer hard disk (as of 2024, typically about 10 13, 1–2 TB), or 10 trillion/10T
The name of a number 10 3n+3, where n is greater than or equal to 1000, is formed by concatenating the names of the numbers of the form 10 3m+3, where m represents each group of comma-separated digits of n, with each but the last "-illion" trimmed to "-illi-", or, in the case of m = 0, either "-nilli-" or "-nillion". [17]
In the Western world, specific number names for larger numbers did not come into common use until quite recently. The Ancient Greeks used a system based on the myriad, that is, ten thousand, and their largest named number was a myriad myriad, or one hundred million.
The largest known prime number is 2 136,279,841 − 1, a number which has 41,024,320 digits when written in the decimal system. It was found on October 12, 2024, on a cloud-based virtual machine volunteered by Luke Durant, a 36-year-old researcher from San Jose, California, to the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS).
Largest base for which all left-truncatable primes are known. 90: Nonagesimal: Related to Goormaghtigh conjecture for the generalized repunit numbers (111 in base 90 = 1111111111111 in base 2). 95: Number of printable ASCII characters. [65] 96: Total number of character codes in the (six) ASCII sticks containing printable characters. 97
Sagan gave an example that if the entire volume of the observable universe is filled with fine dust particles roughly 1.5 micrometers in size (0.0015 millimeters), then the number of different combinations in which the particles could be arranged and numbered would be about one googolplex. [8] [9]