The first time I heard about Wolfram|Alpha, I thought it was like Google, simply another search engine. But when I start using it, I realized that it's far different from Google, Bing or Ask. It's way different. So I read their about page and saw their description of this engine:
"It's a computational knowledge engine that generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links."
It has its own database where it processes the information you asked for. Instead of crawling the web for the keywords you typed, it will do the computation on its own server or knowledge base as how they put it. E.g. you typed distance between New York and Mississippi, it will only return results that are relevant and helpful. You will know the distance in various conversions from miles to kilometers, and it will even provide you a map!
I accumulated a list of interesting things you can do with Wolfram|Alpha, here they are:
Assuming you are a student and you currently have an Algebra subject, you may use this to have the answer key to problems. I don't suggest you use this to have answers to your homework. That's cheating! However, what I suggest is, if you want to train yourself in Algebra, W|A is a great help! Example: Look for Algebra problems around the web and answer them all. To check whether your answers are right or wrong, type the question and you'll see the answer key. E.g You want to factor a polynomial, type factor x^2 - 9x + 20 and you'll get the result, plus some additional information.
Assuming you have a company and wants to check its current status versus another company, you may type e.g Apple Microsoft.
Know something about yourself. Enter your birth date and you'll see your exact age in years, months and days in many conversions. You can also see important events that happened on that day.
Know about something you love. Example: You love cats and wants to know specific things about them like their scientific name, etc.
Search for interesting things like the tallest building on earth, longest word in the English dictionary, smallest living person in the world, etc.
There are endless things you can do with Wolfram|Alpha. Instead of typing keywords and ending on pages that really doesn't help you, you can save your time and use this technology. Sorry but SEO doesn't work here. ;-)
On the other hand, I accumulated helpful W|A widgets that may help you based on your field of expertise or you may just want to explore and gain interesting info. You can view them on my Tools page. I'll move the page on a new post. Stay tuned! :-) Read it here! :-)
Wolfram|Alpha is created by Stephen Wolfram.
You can watch a video its launch on 2009 when you follow this link.
View The History of Systematic Data and the Development of Computable Knowledge.
For more info about Wolfram|Alpha, read their blog.
Article by Loading-Info
0 Switch to the Web version to comment:
Post a Comment