3 ms·

I'm very unimpressed - I had high hopes alas, here are some real queries from my lab where google gives me the right answer within 1-2 links. (or I can reach fo

I'm very unimpressed - I had high hopes alas, here are some real queries from my lab where google gives me the right answer within 1-2 links. (or I can reach for the CRC handbook) W|A Q: speed of light in glass A: c (speed of light) and small glasses are not compatible Q: magnetic moment of cobalt atom A: wolfram alpha isn't sure what to do with your input (note just "cobalt" has the information but you have to dig a little) Q: band structure of bismuth A: Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input Q: polarizability of sodium atom A: Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input. Q: dipole moment of water A: Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input. Q: isotopes of copper A: good job! (this one actually gives me what I'm looking for) I just read it can do music so.. Q: bach A: has a very small amount of info and a cute timeline of birth and death <same for charles mingus, and ozzy osbourne> Q: bach english suites A: Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input. It's also really annoying that it does the HAL9000 thing like every other query. Nice effort - better luck next time. I'm sticking with the CRC handbook and GOOG.

Keyframe 17y ago
I've tried something similar for my first try (as your first question) - http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=light+index+of+refraction+of+glass http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=light+index+of+refracti... WA does seem to have IOR list of common materials, but that is easily obtainable from almost everywhere, however you can then use to calculate further down the road with WA
Silentio 17y ago
By the HAL9000 thing, I assume you mean it does everything it can to protect the integrity of its mission and attempts to kill the crew.
anigbrowl 17y ago
This has been my problem during testing. I'm very impressed with the quality of the curated data, but getting at it seems very hit-and-miss. I gave the exdample a week or two back of searching on 'Orson Welles' - you can ask 'who directed [OW movie]' and it'll tell you, but 'what movies did OW direct' (and yes I tried many variants) always gets you an error. In this respect it feels like the sort of thing that has always annoyed me about expert systems: it's useful to the extent that you are already familiar with what data is curated therein, and want a handy way to look it up, but rather frustrating for surfing and exploration. I do like it...but I can't help sharing some people's view that it's sort of an ad for Mathematica. It will find a use as citation source - you can embed statistics or factual info in your web page and reference Alpha, in relative comfort that the data there is factually correct. On the other hand, the lack of specificity in the citation info means it won't be quite adequate for academic use, at least not just yet. Might be that its best market will be among high school students who will a) buy Mathematica later and b) grow up with Alpha as past generations did with their slide rules or TI calculators, and stick with it as it evolves. I didn't take time to play with the API yet - superficially it looks flexible, but I'm only a hobby coder. Much depends on where Wolfram draws the line between openness and proprietary use.
anigbrowl 17y ago
Mmm, kurtosis. I like that word too.
ntoshev 17y ago
You are testing it as a basic lookup engine, which is fine, but it's just a part of the offering. I tried to exercise the inference part. Q: goog trading volume A: works! I get a chart, but the volume is in shares, I want it in dollars but haven't been able to get that. From all I tried, only "GOOG trading volume / volume in dollars" seems to understand but doesn't show me anything. OTOH "GOOG trading volume monthly" works as expected. So basic unit conversions work, but not something like "for all days calculate number of shares by closing price" which would give me the volume in USD. I also wanted to see a histogram of the daily volumes, but hasn't been able to. All "GOOG trading volume distribution | histogram | variance" just don't work. A look on another domain shows that it knows something about movies (e.g. the name of the movie shows me a list of actors and other info), but doesn't cross-reference this information (the name of an actor gets me nothing, I expected at least a list of movies). If anyone succeeds in figuring out how to get some of these answers, please reply! W|A doesn't seem to have a place where I can ask for help. Probably it just can't make those inferences though.

Keyframe 17y ago

I've tried something similar for my first try (as your first question) - http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=light+index+of+refraction+of+glass http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=light+index+of+refracti... WA does seem to have IOR list of common materials, but that is easily obtainable from almost everywhere, however you can then use to calculate further down the road with WA

Silentio 17y ago

By the HAL9000 thing, I assume you mean it does everything it can to protect the integrity of its mission and attempts to kill the crew.

anigbrowl 17y ago

This has been my problem during testing. I'm very impressed with the quality of the curated data, but getting at it seems very hit-and-miss. I gave the exdample a week or two back of searching on 'Orson Welles' - you can ask 'who directed [OW movie]' and it'll tell you, but 'what movies did OW direct' (and yes I tried many variants) always gets you an error. In this respect it feels like the sort of thing that has always annoyed me about expert systems: it's useful to the extent that you are already familiar with what data is curated therein, and want a handy way to look it up, but rather frustrating for surfing and exploration. I do like it...but I can't help sharing some people's view that it's sort of an ad for Mathematica. It will find a use as citation source - you can embed statistics or factual info in your web page and reference Alpha, in relative comfort that the data there is factually correct. On the other hand, the lack of specificity in the citation info means it won't be quite adequate for academic use, at least not just yet. Might be that its best market will be among high school students who will a) buy Mathematica later and b) grow up with Alpha as past generations did with their slide rules or TI calculators, and stick with it as it evolves. I didn't take time to play with the API yet - superficially it looks flexible, but I'm only a hobby coder. Much depends on where Wolfram draws the line between openness and proprietary use.

anigbrowl 17y ago

Mmm, kurtosis. I like that word too.

ntoshev 17y ago

You are testing it as a basic lookup engine, which is fine, but it's just a part of the offering. I tried to exercise the inference part. Q: goog trading volume A: works! I get a chart, but the volume is in shares, I want it in dollars but haven't been able to get that. From all I tried, only "GOOG trading volume / volume in dollars" seems to understand but doesn't show me anything. OTOH "GOOG trading volume monthly" works as expected. So basic unit conversions work, but not something like "for all days calculate number of shares by closing price" which would give me the volume in USD. I also wanted to see a histogram of the daily volumes, but hasn't been able to. All "GOOG trading volume distribution | histogram | variance" just don't work. A look on another domain shows that it knows something about movies (e.g. the name of the movie shows me a list of actors and other info), but doesn't cross-reference this information (the name of an actor gets me nothing, I expected at least a list of movies). If anyone succeeds in figuring out how to get some of these answers, please reply! W|A doesn't seem to have a place where I can ask for help. Probably it just can't make those inferences though.