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Edward Kasner

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Edward Kasner (1878–1955) is an American mathematician (person who studies math). He is famous for creating the word googol and the word googolplex.

Kasner went to Columbia University and received his Ph.D. (a degree (measure) of learning) in 1899.

Around 1920, Kasner decided to make a good, catchy name for a very big number (one, followed by a hundred zeros). While he was walking with his nephews Milton (c. 1911–1980) and Edwin Sirotta in New Jersey's Palisades, Kasner asked them to think of good names. Milton was the one who said "googol".

In 1940, with James Roy Newman, Kasner made a book about math called Mathematics and the Imagination ISBN 0486417034. It was in this book that the name "googol" was first used.

In modern times, the website Google was based on Kasner's number googol.


  • Kasner, Edward (1980) [1934]. "Differential-geometric aspects of dynamics". In C.Carpelan, A.Parpola P.Koskikallio (ed.). The Logarithmic potential and other monographs. New York: Chelsea. pp. pp. 235-263. ISBN 0-828-40305-8.
  • Kasner, Edward; Newman, James Roy (April 2001) [London: Penguin, 1940; New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967]. Mathematics and the Imagination. Dover Pubns. ISBN 0486417034.

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