Wolfram Alpha

A number of people have emailed suggesting I blog about Wolfram Alpha.  I haven't done so up to now because it has had so much coverage that I didn't think I could add any more to what had already been said.  So in this posting I am going to link to three articles about how it compares with Google.

First of all, WolframAlpha calls itself "a computational knowledge engine"  rather than a search engine.  It's long-term goal is "to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone".

1. Compare WolframAlpha Searches with Google - here Anol Agarwal of Digital Inspiration shows Firefox users how they can use Wolfram alongside Google.
2. Five things Wolfram Alpha does better and (vastly differently) from Google, is a piece by Stan Schroeder, at Mashable, who provides "some guidelines which will help you shake off that “search engine” frame of mind and perhaps help you start using Wolfram Alpha to its full potential".
3. WolframAlpha and Google Face-off - by David Talbot at Technology Review, shows how the two Web engines compare when given the same queries.

Anybody got any interesting experiences of using WolframAlpha to share? 

Comments

[MGVH]

I ran a number of examples through WolframAlpha related to Biblical Studies and reported it here: http://bibleandtech.blogspot.com/2009/05/wolframalpha-and-biblical-studies.html

[Ken Allan]

Kia ora Jane!

I have tried a series of calculatives in Science and Mathematics.

First, I think it's important to realise that it is vastly different from the usual 'search engine'. You brought this out in your post. It pays to check out the introduction by Stephen Wolfram.

Second, I recently entered the chemical name ammonium sulfate and found that the structures that were returned related to ammonia and sulfuric acid but that it said nothing about ammonium or sulfate ions. It also gave reference to IUPAC which showed incorrect and inappropriate information. Similar related but inaccurate responses were obtained with other chemical names.

WolframAlpha is still in its infancy. I think it is important to give feedback in the facility at the base of the screen if we are to assist this new device.

Catchya later
from Middle-earth

[Warner Mach]

To get a 3D graph on Wolframalpha I entered the following:
plot x^2 + y^2, x=1..10, y=1..10
I got a neat 3D graph. I then entered
plot x^3 + y^3, x=1..10, y=1..10
I got the same 3D graph!
When I looked closely I realized that both were wrong.
Along the y-z plane should be a curve line corresponding to
x=0, y=1, z=1; x=0, y=2, z=8; x=0, y=3, z=27; etc (for cube case) ... I sent a message to the site but have not received
a reply.