Sunday, November 15, 2026

Established on the open web

Beyond Counting

The collected columns of @beyondcounting

Sunday, November 15, 20261 Story
Lead Story · NOV 15

Googol vs. Googolplex: Understanding the Zero Count

What Makes These Numbers Different? When people first encounter the terms "googol" and "googolplex," the immediate reaction is often to assume the second is simply a larger version of the first. That assumption is correct, but the scale of the difference is so enormous that it challenges everyday intuition. Both numbers were coined to illustrate the concept of very large quantities, and each serves a distinct purpose in mathematical thinking and popular science communicatio

Continued inside

What Makes These Numbers Different? When people first encounter the terms "googol" and "googolplex," the immediate reaction is often to assume the second is simply a larger version of the first. That assumption is correct, but the scale of the difference is so enormous that it challenges everyday intuition. Both numbers were coined to illustrate the concept of very large quantities, and each serves a distinct purpose in mathematical thinking and popular science communicatio

Read the full column
Read Googol vs. Googolplex: Understanding the Zero Count