Sent to you by Dragos via Google Reader: Some Questions Can't Be
Answered by Google via Digital Inspiration Technology Blog by Amit on
9/22/10
Want to know the current time in London, or how much is 10 pounds in
grams? Google can directly answer some of these common questions
without requiring you to sift through pages and pages of links.
However, it is not the only tool that offers instant answers. Wolfram
Alpha, a search engine developed by Stephen Wolfram, can solve a much
wider array of problems and unlike Google, it doesn't require to type
queries in any particular syntax. Here are some examples:
1. Your Location
A query like "where am i" will reveal your IP address and your current
geographic location. Alternate queries that will get the same
information about your computer include "who am i" and "what is my ip."
2. Date and Time
You would normally need an Excel spreadsheet and may have to learn some
formulas to perform basic calculations involving date and time but not
with Wolfram Alpha. The tool lets you work with dates using natural
English (similar to Outlook Calendar).
If you are to calculate the number of days before your next holiday,
use "how many days until<holiday name>". You can subtract dates like
regular numbers or compute new dates with natural phrases like "second
saturday of next month" or "now + 10 days."
3. Food
Wolfram Alpha can instantly answer most of your food and nutrition
related questions like how many calories are present in a bottle of
Coke? Which is healthier – the french fries served at Burger King or
the ones at McDonald's?
4. Time Zones
You know that a query like "time in<city>" will display the current
time of that city. This works for most search engines but Wolfram has
an additional feature that works in reverse.
You can specify the time of any city and it will convert that time into
your local timezone. This should be handy when a client suggests a
meeting time using his timezone and you have to quickly figure out if
that time works out for you.
Also see: A Less Confusing View of World Time Zones
5. Astronomy
If you are a fan of Astronomy, you'll absolutely love Wolfram Alpha and
it can compute the position of stars and planets for any given day.
The tool can tell you the exact dates for astronomical events like when
the next solar eclipse will take place while a specific query like
"solar eclipse in new york" will show you the date for the next eclipse
that will be visible from New York.
6. Finance
Want to know the number of people who are working for a particular
company. Wolfram Alpha can get this information and more using simple
queries like "market cap of Apple" or "revenue of Google." You may also
use the tool to query past stock prices and indices.
7. Colors
What do you get when you pour some red paint in a bucket of yellow
paint? What's the HTML and RGB equivalent of Purple?
8. Comparisons
Wolfram|Alpha is an excellent tool for performing comparisons and it
presents results in a neat table making it easy for you to interpret
the data.
You may compare almost anything and everything from airports,
universities, size of popular structures (Statue of Liberty vs Eiffel
Tower), quantities (10 lb vs 12 kg), stock quotes, sales tax rates in
various cities, sports teams, and even standard paper sizes.
9. Weather
Most search engines offer weather forecast for the next 7 or 10 days
but with Wolfram Alpha, you can get historic weather conditions of a
city as well for any given date.
And unlike Google which will only give you sunrise and sunset times for
the next day, Wolfram Alpha can compute that information for any past
and future date.
10. Understand Relations
This is one of my favorites. Put it any complex family relationship –
like your mother's sister's son's wife's father – and Wolfram will map
it into a genealogical tree making it easier for you make sense of that
relation.
These are just some uses of the very-awesome Wolfram|Alpha. Do check
this page for more examples and then go here to add Wolfram to your
browser's search box.
Also see: Display Wolfram Alpha results in Google
This article, titled Some Questions Can't Be Answered by Google, was
originally published at Digital Inspiration under Search, Wolfram,
Internet.
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