Sqrt(x*x+y*y)+3*cos(sqrt(x*x+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20 • Hacker News Board

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#101

Post by acak » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 3:18 AM UTC

tzz wrote: post #72

How does Google able to do this really fast? I mean even faster than a graphic calculator?

Sorry. I don't know who down-voted you for what might be an innocent question.

Google is calculating the set of values satisfying these equations on servers which are pretty fast - quite a bit faster than graph calculators.

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#102

Post by yuletide666 » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 3:32 AM UTC

woah.

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#103

Post by comex » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 3:36 AM UTC

wcarss wrote: post #92

I didn't see anyone mention this specific fear, but a lot of people talked about this in the context of competition with Wolfram Alpha. What I fear is that google (on purpose or not) will outshine Wolfram's offering, push W|A out of the game, and then in 3-6 years decide it is not a feature worth keeping up. Just like code search, viable companies may fail due to Google toying with their entire industry, and then Goo…

Well, this graph viewer is fun, but it's only a tiny sliver of what Wolfram|Alpha can do; if Google wants to "toy with" the industry it will require some more serious toying!

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#104

Post by Iv » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 3:38 AM UTC

smokinn wrote: post #94

wcarss wrote: post #92

I didn't see anyone mention this specific fear, but a lot of people talked about this in the context of competition with Wolfram Alpha. What I fear is that google (on purpose or not) will outshine Wolfram's offering, push W|A out of the game, and then in 3-6 years decide it is not a feature worth keeping up. Just like code search, viable companies may fail due to Google toying with their entire industry, and then Goo…

I don't fear Google dropping us behind where we are, I fear another IE6. IE6 back in the day was actually quite good. But because it was really good (among other other more shady things) everything else died off and it stagnated. What I fear is google keeping us in a local maxima of search and having us stagnate there for a decade.

Don't worry. Little by little, politicians come up with ways that will make it impossible for google to continue its business...

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#105

Post by Tangaroa » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 3:45 AM UTC

tzz wrote: post #72

How does Google able to do this really fast? I mean even faster than a graphic calculator?

The math and rendering is done client-side so it's your computer that is faster than a graphic calculator.

Relevant xkcd: http://xkcd.com/768/

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#106

Post by edwardy20 » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 4:43 AM UTC

I didn't have WebGL so I didn't get to see what all the hype was about at first.

For the rest of you who are unlucky like me, here's a GIF a Redditor kindly posted: http://i.imgur.com/58mgx.gif

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#107

Post by rcfox » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 5:00 AM UTC

It works beautifully on my Playbook.

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#108

Post by StavrosK » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 5:15 AM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #20

wolf550e wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can enable it in about:flags

Actually the thing in about:flags to to "enable" the "disabling" of WebGl.

No, you need to disable the disabling. Still doesn't work for me, though.

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#109

Post by JoachimSchipper » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 5:19 AM UTC

troyastorino wrote: post #97

fferen wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wolfram Alpha also seems to bail out when a mathematical expression exceeds a certain complexity, which makes it fairly useless for the only thing I want to use it for - evaluating hairy integrals and other long expressions. Or worse, it just "interprets" it as a part of my original expression and calculates that, as if I just typed out the rest of it because I enjoy typing random symbols. It seems like such a waste…

If you just type in the expression as Mathematica code, doesn't Wolfram Alpha evaluate it just as Mathematica would?

Yes, but it times out rather quickly. Mathematica is much more powerful.

(For those interested: the relevant syntax is

    Integrate[x^2, x]

or

    Integrate[x^2, {x, 0, 1}]

You can find more Mathematica at http://reference.wolfram.com/mathematica/guide/Mathematica.h...; searching the Mathematica docs is often easier than figuring out which textual query Wolfram|Alpha understands.)

Re: Sqrt(xx+yy)+3cos(sqrt(xx+y*y))+5 from -20 to 20

#110

Post by kaens » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 5:38 AM UTC

Iv wrote: post #104

smokinn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't fear Google dropping us behind where we are, I fear another IE6. IE6 back in the day was actually quite good. But because it was really good (among other other more shady things) everything else died off and it stagnated. What I fear is google keeping us in a local maxima of search and having us stagnate there for a decade.

Don't worry. Little by little, politicians come up with ways that will make it impossible for google to continue its business...

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but most of the possible meanings I can think of aren't ones that would really stop us from having google be an (unfortunate) local maxima of search for too long.