• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

WolframAlpha - search engine progress of amazingness.

Status
Not open for further replies.
panda21 said:
meh

whats so amazing about that? its just searching and picking out numbers and then doing some graphs of it

you couldnt trust it to properly interpret information it finds on the web incase it grabs something without properly being able to parse the context.

its just stuff pre-programmed for it to do like finance, history, genome sequences, geography etc

ask it how to beat vamp in mgs 4 and it wont know shit
Click to expand...

Which is still an incredibly useful tool... no?
 
panda21 said:
meh

whats so amazing about that? its just searching and picking out numbers and then doing some graphs of it

you couldnt trust it to properly interpret information it finds on the web incase it grabs something without properly being able to parse the context.

its just stuff pre-programmed for it to do like finance, history, genome sequences, geography etc

ask it how to beat vamp in mgs 4 and it wont know shit
Click to expand...
All the data has been humanly input and categorized for many years. If I remember correctly, they only populate the database with irrefutable facts.
 
It is Friday, May 15 at 7pm CT and I cannot search and it will not load the live webcast. So far I'd say Wolfram is batting 0 for 2. Let's not put it in control of the world just yet.
 
From what I've seen Wolfram has one of the world's biggest egos. So I guess I'm a bit skeptical about this living up to the hype he is generating.
 
Trurl said:
From what I've seen Wolfram has one of the world's biggest ego. So I guess I'm a bit skeptical about this living up to the hype he is generating.
Click to expand...

I doubt that, I mean it isn't like he's done sometihng as vain as name this after himself or anything
 
Seems interesting, but I would like to now how reliable are the sources if this is going to be used in any serious work.
 
X26 said:
I doubt that, I mean it isn't like he's done sometihng as vain as name this after himself or anything
Click to expand...
As a kid I tried reading "A New Kind of Science" by Wolfram. I couldn't get through much of it, but it seemed like 8/10's of the text was about how important the book is and how awesome Stephen Wolfram is.
 
Mathmatica is a piece of shit, but I do find Wolfram's online intergrater to be quite nice. We'll see which this falls under.
 
Trurl said:
As a kid I tried reading "A New Kind of Science" by Wolfram. I couldn't get through much of it, but it seemed like 8/10's of the text was about how important the book is and how awesome Stephen Wolfram is.
Click to expand...

Well he was considered a child genius and a big ass ego is something that goes along with it. They are really fucking annoying if you ever watch those TV shows about them.
You'd think, though, that with all that intelligence they'd be able to muster up some common sense.
 
Trurl said:
As a kid I tried reading "A New Kind of Science" by Wolfram. I couldn't get through much of it, but it seemed like 8/10's of the text was about how important the book is and how awesome Stephen Wolfram is.
Click to expand...

Yeah pretty much..

Mathematica is actually very good in what it can do with computational algebra, but ultimately its just a very good program. I mean its not theoretically more clever than the open source ones or anything its just had better support/work put into it to tell it how to do more things.

The guy himself seems like a real ego-maniac though, the book was interesting but didnt really live up to his hype.
 
Wolfram isn't really a 'search engine', its an expert system or as they call it a computational knowledge engine.
 
Calidor said:
Seems interesting, but I would like to now how reliable are the sources if this is going to be used in any serious work.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that none of my profs would accept a citation from Wolfram Alpha. Unfortunately Wolframs actual data sources are buried in its knowledge base so while it may give you an answer - you may still need to so some work to get that back to a form that is immediately usable for anything 'serious' unless its a raw mathematical derivation.
 
Dax01 said:
This is better than Google.

I will use this from now on.
Click to expand...

It's completely different than Google. You'll still need Google to look up information on Avery Brooks' newest ceramic art projects.
 
Topher said:
After reading some, I still don't understand completely what this is.
Click to expand...


Its a system that you can ask to solve problems for you. Its not something that you'd use to actually FIND stuff on the Internet. So if you want to know how many puppies are in downtown Beijing, it will tell you. But if you want to see pictures of NSync - its not going to help you much.

Google is a search engine. It indexes the world and provides a system to allow you to locate stuff. Think of google as a 'map for dummies'.

Wolfram is an expert system. It has a huge knowledge base of data where that data is organized in a way to make it easier to derive results. Its like the tour guide - you can ask it how many people live in the city or how many puppies are being consumed, but it doesn't categorize 'assets' like websites where data would be located.

They are REALLY two different things with different intentions/motivations/audiences.
 
My first question will be "What is the meaning of life and everything". Let's see if WolframAlpha gives me 42.
 
RSTEIN said:
My first search shall be how big is Stephen Wolfram's penis.
Click to expand...


He probably has it set at something like 18 inches, and that it is smarter than you.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

The Search for Céline Cremer
0
181
falconhoof replied
Search Brainrot on YouTube.
Social 
10
587
Revolutionary replied
Random YouTube Searches
12
899
falconhoof replied
The search for MH370 is back
18
3K
Hookshot replied
A Super Progressive Movie (2025) TRAILER.
11
583
Grildon Tundy replied
Top Bottom