A googol is a large number written as the digit 1 followed by 100 zeros. The number is too large to have any practical value (it is significantly greater than the number of grains of sand or drops of water on earth, or even the number of atoms in the universe). It was introduced by mathematician Edward Kasner, who used it to illustrate the concept of infinity. When the founders of Google were looking for a name for their website (then known as "BackRub") that would demonstrate the vast amount of information it could provide, they chose "googol" but accidentally misspelled it, and the rest is history.
