Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#1

Post by zandorg » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

I did a search on comments on HN for Wolfram Alpha. Most posts are 8 years old, none newer, some older.

What's going on? Did Wolfram Alpha stop being useful, or did people just forget about it?

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#2

Post by neltnerb » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#3

Post by bawolff » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:47 PM UTC

I imagine it just stopped being new.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#4

Post by onedognight » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

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 nutrition content of an egg sandwich.

   1 egg, two slices whole wheat bread, one slice of cheddar, two pieces of bacon

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%20egg%2C%20two%20slic...

I was curious about the relative usage of two names over time.

   Michael, Henry

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Michael%2C%20Henry

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#5

Post by DiabloD3 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

I use WA for complex math at least once a week.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#6

Post by ivansavz » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

For me, I never got into using it much (due to lack of experience with Mathematica syntax). I had some niche uses like "how many work days between and " but that's hardly so important.

Instead I use the SymPy Live shell https://live.sympy.org/ which does most of what I need in terms of math calculations. I'm a big fan of the sharable links (the thumbtack button below the prompt) that you can post in comments to show an entire calculation encoded in the URL querystring, e.g., https://live.sympy.org/?evaluate=factor(x**2%2B5*x%2B6)%0A%2... (factoring a polynomial), or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23158095 (linear algebra helper function).

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#7

Post by Ansil849 » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:57 PM UTC

Honestly, Google can now do most of the basic things that WA could do.

And the more complex things WA could do oftentimes require a bunch of trial and error to figure out the correct syntax/phrasing to use to get correct results, to the point where it was just easier to either do the calculation manually or find a dedicated site for it.

So it has just lost utility for me.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#8

Post by sliq » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:58 PM UTC

onedognight wrote: post #4

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…

wow, typing "8 year old female" into a search engine might cause some trouble

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#9

Post by david_allison » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

They put their "step-by-step" explanations behind a [login/pay]wall which made it significantly less useful.

Out of sight, out of mind. It's still there

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#10

Post by lousken » Sat, Nov 06, 2021, 6:01 PM UTC

I used to use it a lot but google now provides most answers as well and much faster. Wolframalpha performance is still sluggish and 6 second loading for a bunch of text (simple queries like `6cet to pst` is frustrating)