Math

Today, we went in depth in math class. A while ago, a student asked me about googol and googolplex, not to be confused with google. I said I would look into it and we would speak more about it. Then, Monday I was in a cafe and found and older, amazing math book. I was reading through it before bed and there it was, a section on googol and googolplex. So, today, after compliments and appreciations, I read to them from the book. The story goes that a boy called Pasha was interested in the largest number possible and came up with the number googol, a 1 with a 100 zeros after it. This is more than the grains of sand or the stars in the sky. The thing is, it would take so long to write the number that there needed to be a mathematical shorthand and so 10 to the power of a 100. Next Pasha dreamed up googolplex, 10 to the power of googol. I wrote these numbers on the board and showed the students 2 to the power of 3 and we solved it together so that the concept of exponents might be more attainable. Ezra Rock asked why 10 to the power googol, why not use 9s and I explained that multiplying by 10s is easier and that we have a base ten system as they can see from our hundreds charts, their number scrolls, base ten blocks. I told them that there are other systems and that the book also had a section on binary system and that this was the building block for coding. Fascinating conversation and we will read more about Pasha and his discoveries, perhaps tomorrow.