Saturday, November 14, 2009

Wolfram Alpha

I was just flipping through the most recent issues of Popular Science and came across an article about Wolfram Alpha a "computational knowledge engine." Essentially, it takes your question and gives you an answer instead of pointing to a website. If you put in an equation, say x²+4x+24, it gives you this, the answer to pretty much any math question you'd get related to that formula. Put in 3/12/1981 and you receive a wealth of information about that day. Type in Cass City and you can find out anything from the map coordinates (43.6° N, 83.18° W) to the population (2,606 people). This probably makes me a geek, but I think that's awesome.

2 comments:

andy said...

Handy for specific information - distances, equations, etc. The engineers at work got a kick out of it. The secretaries didn't see the point.

Ump said...

Man, I could have done so much better in my calculus classes...