Author Topic: Wolfram Alpha (Read 8758 times)

Karlos · « **on:** May 18, 2009, 09:41:55 AM »

So, has anybody else tried it yet?

http://www.wolframalpha.com/ - rather intriguing.

It's very different from the usual search engine paradigm, instead you can ask questions, enter formulae etc.

For some reason though, the page renders extremely slowly on firefox 3 here at work (fedora 10)

Karlos · « **Reply #1 on:** May 18, 2009, 08:23:52 PM »

Actually, no. It was something that cropped up on the bbc news website as an upcoming technology ages ago and piqued my curiosity. I saw this morning that it had gone live.

Karlos · « **Reply #2 on:** May 18, 2009, 10:08:41 PM »

Quote from: nicholas;454945

I can't!

Let's face it, you'd be freaked if it knew :p

Karlos · « **Reply #3 on:** May 19, 2009, 12:02:35 AM »

Quote from: GadgetMaster;454966

Try putting in :

Born 1920

(or whatever year )

Mate, I know I'm getting a bit old these days, but please...

Karlos · « **Reply #4 on:** May 19, 2009, 12:35:32 AM »

Pill popping for love and happiness obviously predates MDMA then...

Karlos · « **Reply #5 on:** May 19, 2009, 12:48:25 AM »

Quote from: impactor;454992

It's shite.

Nope, it's just that Amiga trivia by and large isn't "computable" knowledge, is it? You can't blame it for not returning any meaningful results as a consequence of your misunderstanding how it works.

Try asking it something like "how big is antarctica?" or "how far away is saturn today?" and see what you get.

Karlos · « **Reply #6 on:** May 19, 2009, 12:55:51 AM »

Quote from: impactor;454999

As I said I tried asking it some questions about the Amiga, such as "what is an amiga computer?" and it can't even provide any response.

Again, that isn't computable knowledge, that's just indexable data, which is what Google specialises in.

From the first entry in the FAQ

Quote

Is Wolfram|Alpha a search engine?

No. It's a computational knowledge engine: it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links.

Never mind. In a few months it might actually have learned enough to tell you

Karlos · « **Reply #7 on:** May 19, 2009, 01:06:47 AM »

To be fair, that's typical of the bbc technology section. "Experts predict that the orange will surpass the apple very soon"

Karlos · « **Reply #8 on:** May 19, 2009, 12:34:41 PM »

Quote from: Speelgoedmannetje;455067

Ehm, it combines indexable data with computable data.
I just love what they were thinking.
It's revolutionary (I think).

It uses indexable data to feed it's family of algorithms and derive knowledge from it. It doesn't simply search and rank indexable data in the same way search engines do.

Karlos · « **Reply #9 on:** May 19, 2009, 01:43:18 PM »

Quote from: hooligan;455087

Rather useless, I'd say. 99% of times Google is more of your friend, and usually it doesn't give answers to trivial questions. Thumbs down.

People seem to be completely unable to grasp that this isn't a search engine. It's a computable knowledge engine. They are completely and utterly different.

If the system has a downfall it will primarily be due to this, I suspect.