How can googol be a one followed by 100 zeros if the zeros have to be in groups of three and 100 isn't evenly divided by three?

Answer 1

A visual answer:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000


Answer:
Consider the simpler case that ten thousand is a one followed by 4 zeros. Four is no more divisible by 3 than 100 so your concern is the same. Ten thousand is 10,000 - obviously it exists, has four zeros, and obviously ten thousand is a real number. The grouping of zeros into packages of three after a number is a method of establishing the magnitude of the number more quickly. After a 1 three zeros is a thousand. six a million, nine a billion and so on. The one can be augmeneted with a zero to give us 10 (ten) or two zeros (100) to give us one hundred. So a googol can be described as either 1 followed by 100 zeros or 10 followed by 99 zeros. As counting out a hundred zeros is a pain and a source of confusion most scientific or math types would write it as 1x10100 or 10100 or 10 to the power 100 (all the same thing). Before you get worried about that zero count. 102 is a hundred (100) so the number of the exponent just indicates the number of zeros following the 1 in the written out format.