Final answer:
A googol is the number 1 followed by one hundred zeros, written as 10 to the power of 100 in scientific notation, which simplifies the representation of large numbers.
Step-by-step explanation:
The large number referred to by the student is known as a googol, which is indeed the number 1 followed by one hundred zeros. In mathematical terms, a googol is written as 10100, which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros. This is a way to express very large numbers using scientific notation. Scientific notation is a method of writing numbers that accommodates large values without writing out a multitude of zeros. For a number to be in scientific notation, it must have one digit to the left of the decimal point, followed by the decimal part, and then multiplied by 10 raised to an exponent, which represents the number of places the decimal point has been moved. For instance, 1,372,568 can be written as 1.372568 × 106.