

Lots of new features for wolfram alpha - j_baker
http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2009/12/21/new-features-in-wolframalpha-year-end-update/#more-4555

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yannis
The amazing thing about it is that it is an 'answers engine'. Unlike web
search engines, it does not try to return relevant web pages to a particular
search term. It treats your query as a question and attempt to compute an
answer. Its internal databases are already massive. It is a much higher bar to
say 'we want to get the answer'.

More intriguing in a recent interview with David Cohen from New Scientist
Stephen Wolfram claims to have found a model which describes the universe
using cellular automata (even containing something that looks like general
relativity).

PS Missing a small textbox to LaTex the output!

~~~
throw_away
he said something along similar lines on the wolfram blog just prior to
alpha's release: [http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/05/14/7-years-of-nksand-its-
fir...](http://blog.wolfram.com/2009/05/14/7-years-of-nksand-its-first-killer-
app/)

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hga
It's an interesting concept ... but they claim ownership of the output of
their engine.

That's perhaps reasonable based on what they're doing, and certainly their
right, but it drops my interest in it to near 0 (note that based on my
personal circumstances anything I do is non-commercial).

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j_baker
Look! Support for functional programming and pure functions:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/ComputationalScience.ht...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/ComputationalScience.html)

