{"id":611,"date":"2009-05-19T08:55:45","date_gmt":"2009-05-19T15:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/?p=611"},"modified":"2009-11-23T01:01:40","modified_gmt":"2009-11-23T08:01:40","slug":"wolframalpha-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/?p=611","title":{"rendered":"Wolfram|Alpha search"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/\"><strong>Wolfram|Alpha search<\/strong><\/a> is a new specialized search engine that focuses on focuses on <strong>algorithmic answers <\/strong>for <strong>scientific knowledge<\/strong>.\u00a0 It easily beats Google or any of the other general search tools in its specialized area.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, it's harder than it looks.\u00a0 Here's one example:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/input\/?i=what+is+the+age+of+the+universe\">what is the <strong>age<\/strong> of the universe<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Result: <strong>13.7 billion years<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/input\/?i=how+old+is+the+universe\">how <strong>old<\/strong> is the universe<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><em>Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Looks like it still has a slight bias towards more precise terms like age vs old.<span> <\/span>It does seem to handle both \"how <strong>big<\/strong> is &#8230;\" and \"what is the <strong>size<\/strong> of &#8230;\".<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, this is quite impressive:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/input\/?i=planck+time+*+age+of+the+universe\">planck time * age of the universe<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Result: <strong>3.2 x 10<sup>60<\/sup> planck times<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But the following doesn't \"work\" quite as nicely:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/input\/?i=planck+length+*+size+of+the+universe\">planck length * size of the universe<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\">Input interpretation: (planck length) X (diameter of observable universe)<br \/>\nResult: 1.6 x 10<sup>-40<\/sup> planck times<\/p>\n<p>Instead I have to search \"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wolframalpha.com\/input\/?i=planck+length+universe+size\">planck length universe size<\/a>\" and then scroll down to<span> <\/span>\"Ratios\" section to see the answer I was looking for:<span> <\/span><strong>5.4 x 10<sup>61<\/sup> planck lengths<\/strong>.\u00a0 Still, not bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wolfram|Alpha search is a new specialized search engine that focuses on focuses on algorithmic answers for scientific knowledge.\u00a0 It easily beats Google or any of the other general search tools in its specialized area. Even so, it's harder than it looks.\u00a0 Here's one example: what <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/?p=611\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.netjeff.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}