For instance, in a book entitled Mathematics and the Imagination (published in 1940) the authors, Edward Kasner and James Newman, introduced a number… - Isaac Asimov

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For instance, in a book entitled Mathematics and the Imagination (published in 1940) the authors, Edward Kasner and James Newman, introduced a number called the "googol," which is good and large and which was promptly taken up by writers of books and articles on popular mathematics.
Personally, I think it is an awful name, but the young child of one of the authors invented it, and what could a proud father do? Thus, we are afflicted forever with that baby-talk number.