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The 'Googleplex' is the company headquarters for Google, Inc., located at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California, near San Jose.
The name Googleplex is a play on words, being a combination of the words ''Google'' and ''complex'', and a reference to ''googolplex'', the name given to the large number $10^\{10^\{100\}\}$.

Contents

Facilities and history

Location

Other uses of the word

Prior to 7 September 1998

After 7 September 1998

References

External links

Facilities and history

The four core buildings, totaling 506,317 ft² (47,038 m²), were originally used by SGI and leased by Google beginning in 2003.^[1] In June 2006, Google purchased the property from Silicon Graphics for $319 million.^[2]
Although relatively low, the complex covers an extremely large area. The interior of the headquarters is furnished with items like shade lamps and giant rubber balls. The lobby contains a piano and a projection of current live Google search queries. The facilities include a gym (Building 40), free laundry rooms (Buildings 40 and 42), two swimming pools, a sand volleyball court, and nearly a dozen cafeterias. Google has even installed replicas of SpaceShipOne and a dinosaur skeleton.^[3]
In late 2006, the company announced plans to install a series of solar panels, capable of producing 1.6 megawatts of electricity, by the following spring. It is believed that this could be the largest such installation in the country. About 30 percent of the Googleplex's electricity needs will be fulfilled by this project, with the remainder being purchased.^[4] About one third of the panels will be in the form of "solar trees" mounted on poles above parking lots, with the remainder placed on rooftops. ^[5]
The solar panel project went online on 18 June 2007. As of 21 June 2007 Google has installed over 90% of the 9,212 solar panels that comprise the 1,600 kilowatt project. ^[6]

Location

The Googleplex is located between Charleston Road, Amphitheatre Parkway, and Shoreline Boulevard in north Mountain View, California close to the Shoreline Park wetlands. Employees living in San Francisco or the East Bay may take a wifi-enabled Google subsidized shuttle to and from work. It is powered by domestically grown and processed biodiesel.^[7]

Neighbors of the Googleplex include ALZA Plaza and the Mozilla Foundation to the west; Shoreline Amphitheatre to the north; Intuit to the northwest; and Century Theatres, Microsoft Corporation's Silicon Valley research complex, and the Computer History Museum to the south. Moffett Field lies nearby to the east.

Other uses of the word

Prior to 7 September 1998

'Googleplex' (exact spelling) is also the abbreviated name of a very powerful computer in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (1979, ISBN 0-330-25864-8), a novel by Douglas Adams. It was also carried in the ^[8] for the episode broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 29 March 1978, and contained in the television version on 26 January 1981 on BBC Two. In chapter 25 of the novel, Fook is disappointed to hear Deep Thought self-deprecation.

After 7 September 1998

'Googleplex' ''almost'' appears in the The Ziff Who Came to Dinner episode of The Simpsons, as "Goog''ol''plex Theatres", broadcast on 14 March 2004.
'Googleplex' is also the name of the 2003 first Astroid Power-Up! album.^[9]
¹ Aldebaran, not Dangrabad Beta in the scripts.⁸

References

1. Google's movin' on up Stefanie Olsen
2. Google buying its Mountain View, Calif., property Elinor Mills
3. Yes, Google Has A Dinosaur Nathan Weinberg
4. Now Google sets sights on solar system David Baker
5. Google Plans Solar Trees Marty Graham
6. http://www.google.com/corporate/solarpanels/home
7. Worth the drive
8. ''The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts''. Douglas Adams, edited by Geoffrey Perkins. Pan Books, London. 1985. ISBN 0-330-29288-9
9. CD Baby: ASTROID POWER-UP!: Google Plex

External links

★ Life in the Googleplex Photo Essay

★ The Google Culture

★ A Glimpse Inside Google - Googlers at work & play

★ Google Quick Information

★ Googleplex at WikiMapia

★ A visual tour of Google's NYC HQ