Very soon, here, this is going to get hard to write. Fuga-number means "that number raised to that number that number of times." Fuga-2 is (2 2). Fuga is a mixture of the musical word "fugue," and Kieran's "gar-" prefix. We came up with fuga (pronounced 'few-ga'). What about the ultimate five-year-old's answer? "Googolplex raised to the googolplex raised to the googolplex raised to the. We noticed that fzgoogolplex only has googolplex raised to the googolplex once. We made our own new math function, Fuga, to take us one step further in this game. Fzgoogolplex is going to outdo gargoogolplex in just a moment, because gargoogolplex is only googolplex 2, and fzgoogolplex is googolplex googolplex, and nobody is going to top that. Fz-four is 4 4, and fz-million is the 1,000,000 1,000,000 we were looking for. We won't just need a name for 1,000,000 1,000,000, but a name for: N N, any number to the power of itself. But then, some of us have lived long enough to see what's coming. Much more interesting would be to get 1,000,000 1,000,000, which doesn't have a name, as far as I know. However, kids in junior high get around to noticing that four fours is really just four squared (4 x 4 = 4 2), and a million millions is a million squared (1,000,000 x 1,000,000 = (1,000,000) 2). And "gar-googolplex" is a googolplex googolplexes. It implies that there are as many of the number as the number itself. Gargoogolplex is googolplex googolplexes." I liked the cleverness of Kieran's "gar-" prefix. My by-now six-year-old, Kieran, caught the other two off guard one day: "Mine rules gargoogolplex stars. I have been obliged to find ways to make numbers grow faster and faster. And they have to be actual numbers, not phonies like "jillion," or vague not-quite-numbers like "infinity." Part of the game is to keep using up more number names. Kids need numbers beyond numbers, ways to name number larger than whatever numbers the other kids name. It simply has no other nameable name.īut it's no good having a top number. Googolplex isn't just that number but has that many zeros in it. Let's first get straight that googolplex is a really big number. What we need are names for some seriously, really big numbers, bigger even than googolplex. "Well, my space commander rules a googol stars!"Īnd they are stuck again. So that now, in our household, the conversation between the three kids runs on its course: The two decided on the name "googolplex," and they made the names public and popular. Power surges through the ten-year-old at the thought of having found a specific, real number that is so big it doesn't even have a name. "Well, googol didn't have a name until a few seconds ago, so 10 to the googol doesn't have a name." The ten-year-old has recently learned about powers of ten: I can almost hear the conversation at the dinner table. My kids were seriously impressed with googol, and even more impressed that it was named by a ten-year-old in search of a really big number. A jillion is good for a while, but it is not a real number, it's a fake. What kids need are some really big numbers. "Well my space commander rules a million million million million million million." and keeps going until the other two walk away or mom or dad show up and say, "Quiet down in here and just play." Always 100.Īt this point the five-year-old will lose, because the eight-year-old can say, "Well mine rules 1,000 stars, so there." And the five-year-old can't say anything.īut the ten-year-old can, and jumps in with, "But my commander rules a million stars."Īnd now the five-year-old is back in the game. It is so big and frightening to five-year-olds that they never name 101. Five-year-olds have to learn to count to 100 in kindergarten, so One Hundred is a really big number. Now is the big moment for the five-year-old. "Yeah, well my commander rules two stars." "Yeah, well my space commander rules the whole star and all the planets." "My space commander rules the whole world!" It starts with the five- and eight-year-olds. Every parent knows that kids like to hurl really big numbers at each other.