Number Sense

Why a Googolplex Cannot Be Written Out in Full

You will often hear that a googolplex is so large that writing it out in full is impossible. The reason is not a matter of time or patience, it is a fundamental limit set by the physical universe. A googolplex is 10 raised to the power of a googol, and a googol itself is 10 to the 100th power. That means a googolplex has a googol of zeros after the digit 1. To write that number in decimal form, you would need to print a 1 followed by a googol zeros. The number of zeros in a