Wolfram|Alpha - the Next Big Thing?

[Teh Don Ditty]

I wish I had this when I was failing calculus in college.

It's pretty neat so far, I expect it to get better as we go on.

 

[steve2112]

Well, obviously it was stumped, you didn't tell it whether it's the European or the African swallow.

True, but I was hoping it would be able to ask me that. Or at least answer "I don't know that...AAAAHHH!!"

 

[irmongoose]

Though this query does seem to yield an interesting answer:

estimated average cruising airspeed of an unladen European swallow

irmongoose

 

[bartelby]

Seriously, I used to re-read the entire trilogy (all 5 books) once a year. I've been slacking the past couple of years, though.

I've done for the last 10 years.

Plus listen to the audiobooks frequently and the original radio series and watch the TV series.😱

The recent film, however, I've watched once.

 

[neonblue2]

Here are some I've tried.

"meaning of death" - Extrapolated from you know where.
"x=(-b+-squareroot((b^2)-4(a)(c)))/(2a)" - This thing produces perfect pics for homework. Too bad I graduated last year...
"how are you" - Try asking it personal questions.
"june 20 1991 whyalla" - Guess why this is important.

Actually, this is going to be worse than Wikipedia for schools. Whereas Wikipedia can sometimes be used incorrectly to gain false data (by some students - not all) Wolfram|Alpha poses the problem that complex algebra homework is just one click away from the answer.

 

[guifa]

Here are some I've tried.
Actually, this is going to be worse than Wikipedia for schools. Whereas Wikipedia can sometimes be used incorrectly to gain false data (by some students - not all) Wolfram|Alpha poses the problem that complex algebra homework is just one click away from the answer.

It's been one click away for a while, just most people don't happen have to have a copy of (the rather pricey) Mathematica on their machines.

But yeah, it's like people who would before just look up words one by one by one in a dictionary for foreign language classes now just go to google translate (and altavista babelfish before that), even though it actually probably makes their work even worse than if they did the word-by-word dictionary hunt.

 

[OwlsAndApples]

Here are some I've tried.

That quadratic formula one would have been so handy!

 

[Mr. lax]

I love that. I did manage to stump it by asking the average velocity of a laden swallow, however. 🙂

Its fixed now. Try again

 

[niuniu]

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/6254/wolfram.png

hahahahaha😀

lol 42 😀

 

[DoFoT9]

forgive me for bringing up this thread, but it has to be done! its a very good concept.

im afraid im missing the point of it, i get that it can convert things and give you information about a specific place (it doesnt know where i live eheh).. but what else is this useful for??