Search engine to rival Google

[Camy]

A web tool hailed as a significant rival to search giant Google has gone live to the public.Wolfram Alpha is called a computation knowledge engine rather than a search engine and wants to change the way people use online data.

It aims to give people direct answers to queries rather than send them to other sites where they may find what they are seeking.

The system is the brainchild of British-born physicist Stephen Wolfram.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8052798.stm

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

And, it knows the meaning of life!

[Bruin Fisher]

And, it knows the meaning of life!

That's easy-peasy.

Much more useful would be if it knew how I can end the story I'm working on. But I asked, and it didn't.

[Cole Parker]

Bruin, in the tips for using it, it says it can only answer things it knows. I guess only you know how your story ends. It certainly doesn't.

Is your problem you know too many endings, and can't decide the best, or you don't know any at all?

I've had both problems, in abundance.

C

[Bruin Fisher]

Is your problem you know too many endings, and can't decide the best, or you don't know any at all?

Most times I don't know any endings and the characters are left stranded on their precipice until I can think of a way to rescue them.

[DesDownunder]

The endings are easy, but not how to get there. That's why man was created, so he could find all the ways to get to the ending.

So far all the ways man has come up with have been jolly awful or somewhat destructive. However he has come up with a few interesting things to do while waiting for annihilation.

I asked WoframAlpha if it was better than Google, but it couldn't understand the question.

[Cole Parker]

I asked if Google or googol was bigger, and it didn't understand that at all. So, after a recent disucssion with James Merkin and having haikus on the brain, I wrote the following:

How many people know

A google from a googol

How many really care?

Obviously WoframAlpha doesn't.

C

[Merkin]

Google tells us all we need to know about googols: read it here.

BTW, Cole, welcome to the six syllable haiku club. Now I don't feel so bad.

James Merkin

[Cole Parker]

Ok, I counted that 7 times and came up 49. It'll have to be explained to me how it is 6, not 7.

Higher mathematics can flummox me, but lower math, where I'm counting to numbers less than ten, I can usually kick ass.

C

[DesDownunder]

I don't know about the googol or the googolplex, I do however know that my mind boggles at the thought of it all.

Anything over 7" is a big number to me.

One of my friends used to maintain that the only place he could understand math was in a Catholic church.