What is a googol in mathematics?

In math terms, the correct spelling of this word is googol, which refers to a numerical value that, written out, looks like this: 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. In simpler terms, a googol is a value with the number 1 and 100 zeroes behind it. The word google is derived from this, but it refers to the Internet search engine company and not the numerical value.

According to Wolfram MathWorld, the term googol was coined by a 9-year-old boy in the 1930s; this young man was the nephew of a mathematician, Edward Kasner, who then extended the word into googolplex to refer to an even larger numerical value.