Googol is notable for being the subject of the £1 million question in the infamous episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, when contestant Charles Ingram cheated his way through the show by getting help from his wife, who was in the audience, and fellow contestant Tecwen Whittock.
In 1940 Newman wrote (with Edward Kasner) Mathematics and the Imagination in which he identified the mathematical concept of a very large but finite number, which he called "googol" and another large number called "googolplex"—this was the first time this number, and this term, was ever identified.
The company and search engine name Google, was given as a play on the spelling of the Googol number.
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It has been postulated that the name of the number Googol, coined by the 9 year old nephew of Edward Kasner of Jewish origin, originates with the thick texture of Gogle Mogle.