WolframAlpha

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Elite Baiter Joined: 01 May 2006 Posts: 1693

Goes live
linky

Wolfram

Quite intresting

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 11:41 am

Article wrote:

It aims to give people direct answers to queries

Curious -C- wrote:

if a woodchuck could chuck wood how much wood would a woodchuck chuck

The Thingy wrote:

Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input.

I am not convinced.

On the other hand, it did manage to tell me the population, elevation and the current wind speed of the city I live in.

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 12:37 pm

so it's basically just google with a chat interface then?

doesn't sound so special Laughing

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 1:54 pm

My colleague just found it doesn't know about Haar transformations, even though they are well described at Wolfram's own maths site Very Happy

Some knowledge base.

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 2:15 pm

It works for me! Smile

Quote:

Input interpretation:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Quote:

Result:

To get to the other side.

Computed by Wolfram Mathematica

30 years of development have not been wasted.

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 3:56 pm

I asked it "During the Napoleonic Wars what was the name of Villeneuve's Flagship?" and it didn't understand

Type the same thing into Google gave me the answer (Bucentaure) straight away.

However when I asked it to calculate d/dx ((x^2+1)(x^2-1)) I got the right answer plus a nice graph of the function and the indefinite integral - so as a freebie interface to Mathematica it rocks Smile

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 4:16 pm

No matter how much I try, I can't get it to comprehend that Adam Smith is a person. Yet it knows some ridiculous local celebrities, their birth date and place and could probably tell me their shoe size too. What gives Confused

?

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 4:16 pm

I asked it "Who am I" and it came back with my IP details.

So I asked it "Who are you", which it interpreted as "What are you" and answered "I am a computational knowledge engine."

Then i asked it "What is your name" and it replied "My name is Wolfram|Alpha."

and "how old are you" - "2.595 days"

Master Baiter Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 166

The technology must have been derived from Deep Thought. I asked it "what is the meaning of life?"

It's response "42."

I must say, it did come up with the answer considerably faster than Deep Thought did. But when I asked it what the ultimate question was, it was no help. I guess we still have a lot of work to do in that department.

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 7:32 pm

i asked it to 'multiply 6 by 9' and it gave the answer 54

then i asked 'What do you get when you multiply 6 by 9?" and it didn't know.
clearly it can't handle cultural references Wink

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 7:42 pm

For the record, it has no idea why birds suddenly appear.

Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 8:29 pm

briefs or boxers?
Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input.

Master Baiter Joined: 09 Apr 2009 Posts: 166

Me:

Quote:

what is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow

Wolfram:

Quote:

there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)
(asked of a general swallow (but not answered) in Monty Python's Holy Grail.)

Elite Baiter Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 1702

i asked "search"

it resonded:

Quote:

Input interpretation:
hit
Common prefix forms:
kilohit | megahit

Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 10:10 pm

I asked it if God exists:

Quote:

Additional functionality for this topic is under development...
Leave your email address to be notified when it is ready.

Great!! The answer to the ultimate question will soon arrive in my catcher account.