- Jul 3, 2001
- 12,668
- 2,036
- 67
- Disclosures
- Former Technical Communications Developer, QSC Audio
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Anyone use Wolfram|Alpha yet?
- Thread starter Bob Lee (QSC)
- Start date
bongomania
Commercial User
Wow! Impressively ambitious. It didn't know what to do with my query "difference between resistance and impedance", and it defines the two words identically, so I gather they really are emphasizing computable data rather than conceptual encyclopedic information. Looking up "ohm's law" they have a little calculator for it right there.
I've used it a bit, if you can watch the screencast intro.
It's a "knowledge" engine, you can compare two different values together... right now it seems ok but I think it will get better as they compile more data into it.
It's a "knowledge" engine, you can compare two different values together... right now it seems ok but I think it will get better as they compile more data into it.
The databases are mainly science-oriented. Math works, as you'd expect. Musical theory, such as scale/chord analysis, is functional. But when I enter "Palestrina" and "Bach" I get two obscure geographical locations, not the two composers, which would be much more reasonable. "Plek" brings up a human gene instead of the Plek machine. Most non-scientific queries only result in the response "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input". - It's early days, though, and it can only get better.
Perhaps they could implement a drop-down menu to state the purpose of the query, with options such as:
Attribute
Compare
Date
Define
Describe
Explain
Extrapolate
Locate
Solve (for)
and so on. This would help focusing the search, so that the algorithm needn't draw a blank when the purpose and the domain of knowledge are unclear. They should also have a disambiguation feature like Wikipedia has.
Perhaps they could implement a drop-down menu to state the purpose of the query, with options such as:
Attribute
Compare
Date
Define
Describe
Explain
Extrapolate
Locate
Solve (for)
and so on. This would help focusing the search, so that the algorithm needn't draw a blank when the purpose and the domain of knowledge are unclear. They should also have a disambiguation feature like Wikipedia has.
It's a new breed of search engine that attempts to synthesize a valid answer to most any question, instead of just throwing up a load of more or less relevant web pages.
I haven't gotten anything but that response from any question that I have entered so far.
I am sure that if we went back and tried to use the earliest form of Google, it would seem like a joke too. It is the best because they attracted enough revenue to put the time and effort into making it really work.
Whether Wolfram Alpha is any good will await a similar trial. Stephen Wolfram is a really bright guy, but he also believes that the universe is a giant computer, and he doesn't have much more than that to say about how his search engine will be better than anybody else's.
Whether Wolfram Alpha is any good will await a similar trial. Stephen Wolfram is a really bright guy, but he also believes that the universe is a giant computer, and he doesn't have much more than that to say about how his search engine will be better than anybody else's.
