google, the answer

[Dan Lester]

The question of why www.google.com was so named has also been a thread on 
another list I'm a member of, words-l.   One of the members did his 
research, which obviously we librarians didn't do.  His results appear 
below the row of *** below.

That also got me thinking about it....and found this very quickly, linked 
straight from their home page 
at  http://www.google.com/pressrel/pressrelease4.html .

Google is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, 
nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, to represent the figure 1 
followed by 100 zeroes. Google's use of the term reflects the immense 
amount of information available on the web.


And, I'll bet that even if googol.com hadn't already been taken, the 
marketers would have told them this name is better, as it is more easily 
remembered and spelled by the masses.

cheers

dan

**********************
I thought it had something to do with the very large number 10^100, but
that's a 'googol' ... supposedly named by some mathematician's young
daughter.  There's a VERY large number called 'googolplex', defined as
10^10^100.

Anyway, according to a May 1998 Web article, that is the origin of the
name.  The designers of the engine unashamedly report that "We chose our
system name, Google, because it is a common spelling of googol, or 10^100
and fits well with our goal of building very large-scale search engines."

I rather agree with the Web article when its author puckishly writes
"Funny, I thought the common spelling of googol was 'googol.'"

See <http://www.tbtf.com/archive/0149.html#s08> for details.

--
Good, Fast, and Cheap: Which two of the three would you like?
Dan Lester, 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716 USA 208-383-0165
dan at 84.com   http://www.84.com/  http://www.postcard.org/