

Things Wolfram Alpha Does Better (And Vastly Different) Than Google - Flemlord
http://mashable.com/2009/05/19/wolfram-alpha-better-than-google/

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skorgu
They're missing the one feature I found killer: Unit parsing in math. Doing
something like "sixteen miles per hour in km/ns * 14 hogsheads per parsec"
Just Works in Alpha[1], it fails miserably in Google. Sure you can make it
work with parens and careful phrasing but...

[1]
[http://www23.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sixteen+miles+per+hou...](http://www23.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sixteen+miles+per+hour+in+km%2Fns+*+14+hogsheads+per+parsec)

~~~
las3rjock
I've run into some weird bugs trying to perform calculations in Wolfram|Alpha.
For example, I cannot come up with any query for the general question "human
height vs Empire State Building" that works, even though the separate queries
"height Empire State Building" and "height average male" return answers with
units of length.

~~~
Retric
Adding "average" helps it parse the question.

height Empire State Building divided by average height human

= 235

height Empire State Building divided by height human

Fails

~~~
evilneanderthal
Neat.

a billion light years / average height human * (1/9) furlong / age universe =
1.01 c (speed of light)

Very neat.

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ErrantX
Fair comments. For fun I typed the first query they mention into google...

And look what it found: <http://screencast.com/t/8Z66EsDoz>

Sneaky! So is google going to be the new way to search WA? ;)

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abecedarius
"rely on Wolfram Alpha to either give you the right answer (depending, of
course, on the accuracy of its own index), or no answer at all."

This is wrong because of weaknesses in query parsing/explaining. I tried out
Archimedes's sand-reckoner problem (how many grains of sand it takes to fill
the solar system); it rephrased my query as "planets volume / volume of a
small grain of sand" (which sounds reasonable) and gave an answer off by 17
orders of magnitude, taking "planets volume" to be the volume of the median-
sized planet among all the planets. Its query explanation didn't link to any
explanation of "planets volume", so I had to make that a separate query to
find that out.

They could solve this problem with a better interface to its understanding of
your query.

~~~
stcredzero
I tried:

    
    
        volume of all planets / volume of a grain of sand
    

and I got a graph going back to 1994 of:

    
    
        (the trading volume of Allstate stock) 
            * (volume of all planets in the solar system) 
               / (volume of a grain of sand)

~~~
dangoldin
Interesting! It's because ALL is the ticker symbol of Allstate.

volume of planets / volume of a grain of sand gets the desired result

~~~
las3rjock
That query calculates "median planet volume / volume of a small grain of
sand", as mentioned by the grandparent poster. I believe it is still an open
question how to get Wolfram|Alpha to calculate "total planet volume / volume
of a small grain of sand".

~~~
PhazeDK
"solar system volume / volume of grain of sand" works.
[http://www54.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solar+system+volume+/...](http://www54.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solar+system+volume+/+volume+of+grain+of+sand)

or "planets volume / volume of grain of sand"

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Femur
I think once the general public, who generally think of Alpfa as a Google
competitor, realize Alpha's strengths and how to use it, it will be come a
very powerful and commonly used tool.

I can't wait for the API to be released so that all the Hackers out there can
do things Mr. Wolfram hasn't imagined yet.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
never base a business plan on educating the public. :p

~~~
param
that made me LOL. An ex-colleague started his own company to increase
availability of cheap robotic tools in Indian high-schools. I know this isn't
what you meant, but it made me think of him.

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10ren
WA needs the option of explicit operators, so you can specify your query
precisely.

For example, for financial entities, you get a drop-down menu choice of
_Fundamentals_ , _Ratios_ , _Balance sheet_ and so on - but you can't specify
these in a query. Eg: <http://www94.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=nike+Ratios>
gives you the fundamentals, not the ratios.

But you can pick one of the ratios, and get a comparison (couldn't get this to
work before):
[http://www94.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=return+on+equity++nke...](http://www94.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=return+on+equity++nke+orcl+msft+java+goog)

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redsymbol
The most interesting thing about Alpha so far is the effectiveness of its
public relations. A LOT of news organizations are talking about this. I've
honestly been trying to ignore it, but that has been hard :)

Very curious how they built that kind of press coverage. I'm sure they hired a
good PR firm, but still.

(It's scary how much I've become fascinated by marketing issues lately. Am I
turning into a sales/marketing person?! I'll be the only marketer who VCs his
emacs extensions in a git repo...)

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callahad
Query challenge:

When you ask for the time in an arbitrary location, like Irkutsk, Russia:
<http://www31.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+in+irkutsk> Alpha returns a
"Clocks" view of your location and the location you typed in.

The challenge: Find a query to show the clock view for two arbitrary
locations.

...And then post it here, because I'm stumped.

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blogimus
No libraries of congress per fortnight (yet), but it does recogize Smoot.

Here's Smoots per fornight in cubits per leap year
[http://www65.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=smoots+per+fortnight+...](http://www65.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=smoots+per+fortnight+in+cubits+per+leap+year)

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WilliamLP
I've found it's very useful as a food nutrition calculator. E.g. "protein 200g
chicken breast".

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zandorg
VAT - Nope.

VAT In Europe - Nope.

Value Added Tax in Europe - Nope.

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jamiequint
Query: Oregon Tax

Result: 0% = 0/2

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tamersalama
it properly responds to "the answer to life, the universe and everything"

[http://www88.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+answer+to+life,+t...](http://www88.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+answer+to+life,+the+universe+and+everything)

