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Wolfram Alpha: Our First Impressions

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Re: Wolfram Alpha: Our First Impressions

#21

Wolfram Alpha doesn't compete with Google, it competes with Wikipedia. I expect students who use and quote Alpha as their source of information won't get the same scorn than the ones who quote Wikipedia. It will be an interesting battle: crowdsourcing vs. proof.

And perhaps Freebase: http://www.freebase.com/

Re: Wolfram Alpha: Our First Impressions

#22

Wolfram Alpha doesn't compete with Google, it competes with Wikipedia. I expect students who use and quote Alpha as their source of information won't get the same scorn than the ones who quote Wikipedia. It will be an interesting battle: crowdsourcing vs. proof.

I think they supplement each other. Wikipedia is a great place to go explanatory material; statistics are a part of that but if you are really interested in the numbers behind something you'll probably follow up the citations. Alpha looks to have great potential as a tool for statistical discovery and analysis, but I rather doubt it auto-generate tutorials on what data mean or why they matter.

It would be nice if Wikipedia can improve the quality of its articles by linking to Alpha; I hope Wolfram research won't exert a propriety attitude to its search results, but will make them available with something like a creative commons license to the extent that the original sources are in the public domain.

Re: Wolfram Alpha: Our First Impressions

#24
post #18

The first question I'll ask WA is: "What is the answer to life, the universe and everything" Don't disappoint me...

"Can entropy ever be reversed?"

I'm actually going to be really disappointed if Alpha doesn't have the right answer to this.

Re: Wolfram Alpha: Our First Impressions

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, Wolfram himself once solved a Google puzzle (to encourage job applicants) using Mathematica. It was, what's the pattern here, and what's the next row? 1 11 21 1211 111221 312211

Google is smart enough for this: http://www.google.com/search?q=1%2011%2021%201211%20111221%2...

Only after they posted the puzzle did solutions pop up on their own search engine. :)
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