31–40 of 281 posts
"how many 3mm circles pack in 15mm circle" WA offers answers with drawings. Google cannot do that. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+3mm+circles+p...
A lot more people can script now, so open source packages of computer algebra systems (Sage, numpy, scipy etc.) Probably take a small bite.
And then you have closed source ones to consider like Matlab.
The second largest chunk probably being bitten out of it is its web and app competitors (desmos, symbolab, etc.) Alexa rankings show that these see a lot more traffic and engagement (2 - 3 times).
Finally, a small portion of its functionality is now covered by search engines. I imagine they'll continue to gobble things up. There are also a few good Web tools, I used one for a linear algebra course I found a lot better than the freeware version of WolframAlpha that came with my Raspberry Pi.
I can't find any reports on its revenue or net income. I would be super curious who uses it. Maybe it's growing... who knows? I also remember it being recommended a lot in the early 2010s.
I use it regularly. Sometimes it’s broken, and maybe nobody notices but me? :) Their natural language queries for things that I know they know about are amazing. Here are some that I have used recently. You really need to see these results to appreciate them. I wanted to know how tall my daughter might be. 8 year old female 55 lbs http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=8%20year%20old%20female... I wanted to know the nu…
You searched wrong. Excluding today, the most recent comment was 7 days ago, and there were quite a few more in the past month.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1636070400&dateRange=custom&...
2. Every time I use it, a box saying
NEW: Use textbook math notation to enter your math. TRY IT
3. I'm a long-term Mathematica user, but typing literal Mathematica syntax usually never works, except for simple expressions.
4. Results are PNGs, and copy-pasting a numerical result takes a few unnecessary clicks. "Plain Text" > Copy.
It's still around but I imagine it is experiencing a bunch of competitors biting chunks out of it. A lot more people can script now, so open source packages of computer algebra systems (Sage, numpy, scipy etc.) Probably take a small bite. And then you have closed source ones to consider like Matlab. The second largest chunk probably being bitten out of it is its web and app competitors (desmos, symbolab, etc.) Alexa…
What do you mean? I used it to solve a nasty impedance network for the real and imaginary components yesterday and the solutions were accurate. Edit: Maybe it's just good enough that people treat it as a tool and see no need to market it. It consistently has worked fine-ish for years and is useful at what it does.
My meaning was just that I saw it sometimes referenced on HN, but I haven't seen it mentioned for a while now. Hence my search and results showing 8 years since. I guess what I should be doing is looking at the Alexa ranking of Wolfram Alpha.
"how many 3mm circles pack in 15mm circle" WA offers answers with drawings. Google cannot do that. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+3mm+circles+p...
You're severely underselling Google's incapability, e.g. https://i.imgur.com/UoIZSU2.png