What is Wolfram Alpha? - Comments Page 1

I think Alpha's reliance on a conventional database rather than using the entire web as a database might make it less useful. Google Squared (http://www.google.com/squared) uses the entire web approach, but is severely deficient in arithmetic calculations.

Wolfram alpha is doing an excellent job in search engine operation. It needs to increase the database for better search result.

I was not impressed !

It's not very good. I asked it about Caesar's "battle with the nervii on the sabis river" and it returned nothing. Google had many (correct) entries. I then asked about the Farnsworth Fusor, and it had nothing. Google had many correct links. So Wolfram Alpha is not much good for either liberal arts geekdom or scientific geekdom!
- Mike

I liked the different approach and style.

As an amateur photographer I found it interesting that it knew about "exposure" and provided a tool to calculate exposure based on f-stop and shutter speed. But, it didn't know what to do with "photography exposure".

Hey, this is kind of cool! Although it's natural to compare W/A to a search engine, it's more like a web aggrigator. Sort of like Wikipedia is a knowledge base from various sources (users/authors).

I really like the fact that it cites sources. I work at a High School, so I'm interested in it's application as a resource for students. Guaranteed that some kid will use it to solve "graph the equation x=-y^2" !!!

Dear Bob, Clicking on link to read more, Firefox warns that it thinks this link is a scam! May frighten some people off. Thought you would like to know if not already did.

Enjoy your site enormously,thanks

EDITOR'S NOTE: Are you sure it's FF throwing that warning? Do you perhaps have some other security software that might be getting fooled?

I looked up Fidel Castro and it spewed but the propaganda that has always characterized him and his regime as not being what it is, the longest existing tyranny in our hemisphere.

This is the real story about Castro,
http://www.therealcuba.com/

Really scary! It didn't tell me much about my search term (my birth date) but it could tell me the time of sunrise and sunset today in the location I'm currently in New Zealand.

Not very good. I asked it to give me the ratio of 10 to 100 and it gave me a fraction, a decimal a percentage and a pie chart. The correct answer should have been 1:10.

I like Wolfram Alpha. Have used it for two or three years. I encourage my college math students to check their answers at W.A. because it shows them the steps to the solution.