GOOGOL IT

Don't worry, the spellchecker hasn't gone haywire. Did you know that googol is a mathematical term for a very large number, specifically 10 to the 100th power (1 followed by 100 zeros) and it is larger than the number of elementary particles in the universe? Or that the term was coined by the nine-year-old nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner?

In 1997 Larry Page and Sergey Brin, whilst looking for a new domain name, typed the word "google" in a search engine instead of "googol". They liked the sound of the typo so much, it became their new company's name.

Thinking back, which search engines did we use before 1997? If you can still remember, let us know at bitsbytes@sun.ac.za and we can compare notes.