WolframAlpha.com

[Adrena1in]

The new "Computational Search Engine" that they reckon is going to take over from Google. Just tried it...looks absolutely rubbish!! Doesn't load properly on my screen, broken or corrupt graphics everywhere.

I doubt I'll be using it!

 

[freddielong]

It seems quite interesting I put my date of birth in and it told me I was 13505 days old - Makes me feel very old not sure if I want my computer to make me feel bad.

 

[Adrena1in]

I put my DOB in and it told me it was a Saturday and that some model was born on the same day.

 

[M1tch]

it said that i was

798 and 2 days old
5588 days
and i was born on a sunday

 

[freddielong]

it said that i was

798 and 2 days old
5588 days
and i was born on a sunday

Now I feel even older than before

 

[SS2]

It may not be perfect but it is a fantastic achievement so far.

For example, enter

LLOY value (Correctly identifies this as a request for the current share price of lloyd's banking group)

distance london to glasgow (Gives you the distance and other relevant data)

number of popes (lots of accurate data)

Weight of Eiffel Tower (no response)

average height of man: 5' 5", apparently

compare size of moon to size of earth (no response)

6'4" 200 lbs (great detailed response including BMI)



It is all about asking the right questions in the right format.

 

[ADB]

It is truely addictive....much like this forum actually.

 

[freddielong]

apparently my house is 3901 miles away from Augusta and 174.7 away from St Andrews, that makes me feel better

 

[vig]

It may not be perfect but it is a fantastic achievement so far.

For example, enter

LLOY value (Correctly identifies this as a request for the current share price of lloyd's banking group)

distance london to glasgow (Gives you the distance and other relevant data)

number of popes (lots of accurate data)

Weight of Eiffel Tower (no response)

average height of man: 5' 5", apparently

compare size of moon to size of earth (no response)

6'4" 200 lbs (great detailed response including BMI)



It is all about asking the right questions in the right format.

SS2, why would one want to know all that crap?

 

[SS2]

Vig, I am not interested in the answers as such, the questions are random ones I thought of at the time.

What I am interested in how Wolfram works out what you are asking and then attempts to compute and provide an answer.

Here's a silly example of why this kind of thing interests me, even after almost 20 years of programming for a living.

If you ask a human "How old are you", even a 3 year old could reply. If you ask a computer the same question, it has to rely on logical parsing of your question to come up with an answer. The programming of that parsing, i.e. working out what the question is, is not easy.

Let's say you program the computer to recognise "how old are you" as a question and then program it how to respond. That'll work fine until someone types in "HOW OLD are YOU". Did you make the parsing of the question ignore the case of the question ?

Ok, we've patched the computer so it can now ignore the case of the question. Now, someone who speaks English poorly asks "How old is you ?" Can the computer handle that question?

I could rant on all night but readers would give up after paragraph #64....

I reckon we should all respect Wolfram and the huge amounts of man hours that have gone into it. Try asking it "why is the sky blue"...

 

[Canfordhacker]

Oh no! There's goes the rest of my evening, I love this stuff!