[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?
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Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?
I did a search on comments on HN for Wolfram Alpha. Most posts are
8 years old, none newer, some older. What's going on? Did Wolfram
Alpha stop being useful, or did people just forget about it?
Author : zandorg
Score : 180 points
Date : 2021-11-06 17:11 UTC (5 hours ago)
| upbeat_general wrote:
| My guess is that it's a bit too complicated/slow for a lot of
| ordinary people and too finicky for a lot of technical people.
|
| I'm a frequent Mathematica user and I find almost all of my use
| cases require several different attempts to get the desired
| result w/wolfram alpha. Meanwhile, most people who don't get the
| right result the first time will probably just give up and not
| think to rephrase the query.
| portpecos wrote:
| I used it for Calc 1 and 2. It helped me check my work for
| Limits, derivatives, integrals, Reimann Summs, Series, Sequences.
| I love the part that says "Show Step By Step" because I can
| figure out which step I made an error.
|
| The answers in the back of the book didn't tell me step-by-step
| how I solved the problem. It just gave me the answer and there
| are many times I couldn't figure out which step I made the error.
| Usually it was some dumb mistake, but by identifying the dumb
| mistake, I could remember to double check that similar step in
| future problems.
|
| I had a hard time using it for Classical Physics to check my
| work.
| nprz wrote:
| Same, helped me quite bit back when I was taking Calc 1 and 2
| for that same reason.
| mejutoco wrote:
| Same. It also has a problem generator to practice different
| kinds of problems (https://www.wolframalpha.com/problem-
| generator/?scrollTo=Cal...). Note the step-by-step solution is
| paid.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| I use WA for complex math at least once a week.
| ivan_ah wrote:
| For me, I never got into using it much (due to lack of experience
| with Mathematica syntax). I had some niche uses like "how many
| work days between <date1> and <date2>" but that's hardly so
| important.
|
| Instead I use the SymPy Live shell https://live.sympy.org/ which
| does most of what I need in terms of math calculations. I'm a big
| fan of the sharable links (the thumbtack button below the prompt)
| that you can post in comments to show an entire calculation
| encoded in the URL querystring, e.g.,
| https://live.sympy.org/?evaluate=factor(x**2%2B5*x%2B6)%0A%2...
| (factoring a polynomial), or
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23158095 (linear algebra
| helper function).
| dmlerner wrote:
| Sympy live shell is decent, and the latex rendering is pretty
| sweet. But, it's on ancient versions of everything, runs
| slowly, and has a C- UI.
|
| Instead, I use Colab with Sympy + latex output and matplotlib
| (and most other things you could want to import, pre-
| installed). It's running new versions of things, and backed by
| more power, with an option to pay for even more. The latex
| rendering took a bit of poking around stackoverflow, but works
| just fine.
|
| Feel free to copy:
|
| https://colab.research.google.com/gist/dmlerner/23543255fdde...
| osrec wrote:
| Used it a bit at university to compute some complex integrals if
| I was stuck or feeling lazy. That was 11 years ago.
|
| Don't think I've even visited the website in the past 6 years.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It did about a lot of the heavy lifting in my master's thesis,
| not gonna lie.
| orzi wrote:
| How many astronomers does it take to change a light bulb?
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+astronomers+d...
|
| None; astronomers prefer the dark.
| zorked wrote:
| Used a lot by math students to check answers.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Honestly, Google can now do most of the basic things that WA
| could do.
|
| And the more complex things WA could do oftentimes require a
| bunch of trial and error to figure out the correct
| syntax/phrasing to use to get correct results, to the point where
| it was just easier to either do the calculation manually or find
| a dedicated site for it.
|
| So it has just lost utility for me.
| WA wrote:
| WA not perfect, noted.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I bought Mathematica and I'm using its free text input instead.
| But I guess behind the scenes, it's WA again.
| david_allison wrote:
| They put their "step-by-step" explanations behind a
| [login/pay]wall which made it significantly less useful.
|
| Out of sight, out of mind. It's still there
| sva_ wrote:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=Mathematica_12.3.1
|
| https://github.com/metowolf/mathematica-keygen/blob/master/i...
| vadfa wrote:
| I think they've always been like that.
|
| Good thing is, they have a montly cost, but the mobile app you
| just buy once and it works forever. And it's not that expensive
| iirc.
| david_allison wrote:
| Step by step solutions were free around 9/10 years ago
| [deleted]
| dotancohen wrote:
| > They put their "step-by-step" explanations behind a
| [login/pay]wall which made it significantly less useful.
|
| Maybe, but what else can do step-by-step explanations? Perhaps
| octave?
| fisian wrote:
| SymPy Gamma, for example: https://www.sympygamma.com/input/?i
| =diff%28a**%285*x**2%29%2...
| dotancohen wrote:
| As someone who just signed up for an open university this
| semester, I'd love to hear opinions about Octave and Maxima for
| general purpose use. Especially for study, such as replacing
| Wolfram Alpha's step-by-step solutions.
|
| I'm a Linux user and prefer an open-source solution. But I have
| no objection to paying a reasonable amount of money for a good
| commercial solution. Maybe Maple is worth looking at?
| zoomablemind wrote:
| It depends on what your need is. I used Maxima (wxMaxima) for a
| quick prototyping of handwritten formulations and as a
| reference for some simplifications, roots etc.
|
| Of course, its CAS capabilities are still useful. But I find
| that simplifications done on paper are often more
| straighforward, than making some expressions transform into the
| expected form in Maxima. Also, it's somewhat handy to have the
| ability to output the formulas in TeX format.
|
| I vaguely remember Maple being more apt at expected
| simplifications.
|
| Either way, I believe that Sage, Octave, Maxima etc. should be
| rather supplemental to textbook-based learning. In such way
| their results won't appear as pure magic, but as somewhat
| expected outcome of analysis.
| mkl wrote:
| I prefer Python to Octave and Maxima. Numpy, scipy, and
| matplotlib for numerical stuff, and sympy for symbolic stuff.
| Having them together in the same general purpose language is
| really convenient, and Jupyter notebooks are fantastic. Sage is
| also good, but I've moved on to sympy. I don't know a way to
| get step-by-step working from a library, but sympy gamma can do
| some, so it's probably possible to some extent.
|
| My experience suggests avoiding Maple like the plague. Sympy
| (and Sage) can do everything I ever used it for much nicer and
| easier.
| woranl wrote:
| I use it to solve differential equations.
| lousken wrote:
| I used to use it a lot but google now provides most answers as
| well and much faster. Wolframalpha performance is still sluggish
| and 6 second loading for a bunch of text (simple queries like
| `6cet to pst` is frustrating)
| sebow wrote:
| I doubt the target audience is the same. WA is way more
| powerful than google(which on the other hand has more data, not
| always exactly accurate), but we're comparing apples to peaches
| here.The problem with WA i would say is the fact that people
| who would use it(hobbyists, students, researchers, etc)
| probably don't always have internet connection or are fans of
| the "cloud".I used to love having WA when i was studying math,
| even though it is limited in the capacity of showing different
| methods of achieving a result, it is useful in that you can
| check yourself. In academia sphere the last time i checked
| internet speeds & latency are still an issue, but i might be
| wrong about that, also google has probably the most & fastest
| servers, so we're talking about a performance issue and not
| necessarily a lack of features.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I think students these days use it for math/calculus, but it
| isn't seen as something special because they've always had it. It
| wasn't novel like for us.
| mkl wrote:
| My students seem to prefer Symbolab now.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| At University pretty much everyone I know uses it for homework.
| tata71 wrote:
| WA will give you answers your TA can't!
| orzig wrote:
| I was enthusiastic, but for medium complexity questions I spend
| more time footing with syntax then it would take to do it myself.
| I probably use it for a high complexity question once every few
| months. I'm happy that it exists, on balance
| ketan0 wrote:
| Hi Guys would you like to check out my new blog on Aero Garden
| Hydroponics? Thanks
|
| https://howhydroponics.com/aerogarden-hydroponics-guide/
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Nothing. It's still solving my homework. (Sometimes.)
| m-p-3 wrote:
| I still use it once in a while when I don't want to bother
| converting non-base10 units, like to know the date in 90 days, or
| how many hours in x days, etc.
| gus_massa wrote:
| I use it regularly, like twice a week.
|
| When I'm making exercises to explain to my students in the math
| class, I use W.A. to double check the answer.
|
| I also use it for calculation for comments in HN. Sometimes I
| need to make a back of the envelope calculation, and W.A. can
| convert the units and other boring stuff.
| tlholaday wrote:
| It's fun for life expectancy.
|
| Step one: Ask for your own life expectancy.
|
| Step two: Ask for the life expectancy of someone years' younger.
|
| Step three: What.
|
| Step four: Oh.
| evancox100 wrote:
| Huh? This was not at all surprising, someone younger than me
| had a lower life expectancy, while someone older was higher
| saagarjha wrote:
| This sounds bad for the state of the world?
| pedro2 wrote:
| No, people die. A 99 year old can't have a life expectancy
| of 70 years.
|
| You want life expectancy at birth, by year of birth, for
| proper comparison.
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| I think Siri gets some of its results from Wolfram Alpha.
| pxx wrote:
| I use it whenever I have something mildly annoying to convert,
| especially dates. e.g.
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1636221900+unix+time+i...
|
| Probably an incredibly trivial use-case but still useful
| regularly for me...
| neltnerb wrote:
| It doesn't work so good for times but I often use Google search
| to multiply numbers with units together and get a result in the
| units I want without having to worry about screwing up unit
| conversions.
|
| Example: 4 atomic mass units * (1000 nm/sec)^2
|
| Google Result: 6.64215616 x 10-39 joules
|
| I use this all the time. I use wolfram alpha for solving
| equations or systems of equations but I use google for unit
| conversions because it's got better input parsing (frankly).
|
| I should try the wolfram alpha math entry mode probably, I
| think that didn't exist when I started using it. If I could
| manually enter the equations with stricter formatting to ensure
| it's interpreted properly I'd use it more.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| ... Seriously, though, if you're actually need this type of
| calculation regularly and didn't just pick a random example,
| atomic-scale calculations are absolutely miserable to do in
| SI (and this is not a problem, it's a human-scale,
| engineering system, after all; and its metrological aspects,
| which were the actual advance originally, are completely
| unimportant here).
|
| If I had to do this in my head or with a desk calculator, I'd
| just do it in high-energy units (c = = 1, mass and energy in
| eV, length and time in eV^-1). So, 4 amu = 4
| x 0.93 GeV (a proton weighs 939 MeV, an amu is slightly
| smaller due do binding energy, rounding to 1 GeV is good
| enough for most purposes) [?] 4 GeV, (1000 nm /
| s)^2 = (1e4 A / s)^2 = (1e4 / 1.97 keV^-1 s^-1)^2 (an
| angstrom is a typical atomic size, a keV is a typical [large]
| atomic energy, a fermi aka femtometer is a typical nuclear
| size, a MeV is a typical [not so large] nuclear energy,
| remember any of 197 MeV fm = 1.97 keV A = 1, though again 200
| is almost always good enough) [?] (1e4 / 2 keV^-1 s^-1)^2 =
| 25e6 keV^-2 s^-2, 4 GeV x 25e6 keV^-2 s^-2 = 4e6
| keV x 100e6/4 x keV^-2 s^-2 = 1e14 keV^-1 s^-2.
|
| This is slightly inconvenient, we wanted energy in eV, but
| the seconds don't seem to want to go away. I don't remember
| Planck's constant in eV s, but I do remember 2 keV A [?] 1
| and 300e3 km/s = 3e8 m/s = 1, so let's sprinkle it with
| those, 1e14 keV^-1 s^-2 [?] 1e14 keV^-1 s^-2
| x (2 keV A)^2 / (3e8 m/s)^2 = 4/9 x 1e14 x 1e-16 keV A^2 m^-2
| = 0.44 x 1e14 x 1e-16 keV x (1e-10)^2 [?] 0.44e-22 keV [?]
| 0.44e-19 eV.
|
| The hardest part is pretending to be a normal person: you
| have to remember what an electronvolt actually is in normal
| units. Good thing this is numerically the same as remembering
| the charge of an electron in coulombs (1 eV = 1.6e-19 J),
| 0.44e-19 eV = 0.44e-19 eV x 1.6e-19 J / eV (turns out
| converting to a decimal fraction wasn't a good idea after
| all, powers of two FTW) [?] 4/9 x 16 x 1e-1 x 1e-19 x 1e-19 J
| = 64/9 x 1e-39 J [?] 63/9 x 1e-39 J = 7e-39 J.
|
| Good enough to a couple percent.
|
| OK, I won't pretend that this is easy or that I did it
| flawlessly the first time just now, but I do think this looks
| like a skill you could plausibly learn, unlike the textbook
| "SI all the things" calculation. The good news is that you've
| just seen essentially all the relevant constants you're going
| to have to remember, except maybe Avogadro's number if you're
| going to have moles somewhere.
|
| (One place where this doesn't help is first-principles
| chemistry, things like electrolysis, because you need to
| _subtract_ large binding energies to get a change that's
| hundreds to thousands times smaller. Calculating things to a
| couple percent just isn't good enough.)
| neltnerb wrote:
| Yes, I am familiar with this system. If anything, being a
| physicist is all the better reason to want a computer to
| deal with the units though...
|
| My example was entirely contrived of course, a less
| contrived one would be estimating how long a gas cylinder
| will last. The tank name plate might say it has 200 cubic
| feet (sigh) and you need to flow at 10mL/min. How many
| months does the tank last? I'm talking about quick
| engineering tasks, not theory.
|
| BTW, the answer is about 13 months, whatever that is in
| eV^{-1}:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=200%20cubic%20feet%20
| %...
|
| Which took me about 15 seconds to type. Just different use
| cases.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| A reminder that GNU Units still exists, _e.g._
| $ units Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD
| base) on 2021-01-17 3677 units, 109 prefixes, 114
| nonlinear units You have: 4 amu * (1000 nm/s)^2
| You want: joules * 6.6421563e-39
| / 1.5055352e+38 You have: ^D
|
| It's slightly less DWIMish (you have to say
| "atomicmassunits", "atomicmassunit", "amu", or "u", not
| "atomic mass units") and somewhat awkward as a separate tool,
| but then resorting to your web browser for unit conversions
| is awkward in a different way. Non-interactive invocations,
| like _units VALUE-OR-UNIT UNIT_ , work as well.
|
| [1]: https://www.gnu.org/software/units/
| neltnerb wrote:
| Thanks for the reminder =)
|
| Alas, I often have to do these kinds of calculations on a
| random publicish computer or my phone and Google's
| converter is platform-independent. But not using Google
| services when feasible is certainly net good.
|
| And of course my TI-89 had equally good unit conversion for
| practical purposes (since you can define your own units) so
| somehow the world is still playing catchup to a calculator
| from the 90s...
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| If you're organized enough to have space for Termux on
| your phone, it does wonders in this department. I feel
| silly every time I punch Python code into that teensy
| touch keyboard, but damned if I know anything else that
| has a better input UI and isn't orders of magnitude less
| versatile. (Maple Calculator and microMathematics are
| still on the "there was an attempt" level, in my
| experience.)
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| +1 for 'units'. I like it for conversion between
| millilightseconds and miles, to get the theoretical best-
| case latency between two places.
|
| i.e. if it's x milliseconds ping, it can't be more than m
| miles away.
| pxx wrote:
| You have a missing factor of two.
| [deleted]
| pkdpic wrote:
| I still definitely use it for teaching big O comparisons in a
| live / malleable way. Not sure I know of a comparable resource
| for that but maybe someone out there in the HNstroverse does?
| _game_of_life wrote:
| It's still around but I imagine it is experiencing a bunch of
| competitors biting chunks out of it.
|
| A lot more people can script now, so open source packages of
| computer algebra systems (Sage, numpy, scipy etc.) Probably take
| a small bite.
|
| And then you have closed source ones to consider like Matlab.
|
| The second largest chunk probably being bitten out of it is its
| web and app competitors (desmos, symbolab, etc.) Alexa rankings
| show that these see a lot more traffic and engagement (2 - 3
| times).
|
| Finally, a small portion of its functionality is now covered by
| search engines. I imagine they'll continue to gobble things up.
| There are also a few good Web tools, I used one for a linear
| algebra course I found a lot better than the freeware version of
| WolframAlpha that came with my Raspberry Pi.
|
| I can't find any reports on its revenue or net income. I would be
| super curious who uses it. Maybe it's growing... who knows? I
| also remember it being recommended a lot in the early 2010s.
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| You are mixing things up here. The headline is about Wolfram
| Alpha. You are talking about Mathematica.
| _game_of_life wrote:
| I'm talking about both. When I was comparing them to
| competitors like Symbolab I was using the Alexa ranking for
| alpha.
|
| I find it faster and more accurate to use a specific package
| in an interpreter than query Wolfram Alpha or use
| Mathematica. And for the simpler things a search engine will
| do!
| primitivesuave wrote:
| I think the strategy of Wolfram Research has shifted from trying
| to sell Wolfram Alpha as a standalone service, to selling the
| Wolfram Language with WA functions for retrieving standard
| datasets. A finance professional, for example, probably did not
| gain much information from asking WA "would it be better to
| invest $100 in GOOG or FB in 2013?", but the `FinancialData`
| function for pulling end-of-day stock prices enabled these people
| to do interesting analysis that they couldn't have done
| otherwise.
|
| (source: conjecture, but I did work at WR for 3 years and on the
| initial Wolfram|Alpha release)
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| I just used it recently to plot weather data, population density,
| crime rate, and average home price of cities I was thinking of
| living in
| trevcanhuman wrote:
| I use it to check some results from derivative exercises for my
| calculus class.
| tylermac1 wrote:
| Many thanks to WA for getting me through high school and college
| calculus.
| yorwba wrote:
| > I did a search on comments on HN for Wolfram Alpha. Most posts
| are 8 years old, none newer, some older.
|
| You searched wrong. Excluding today, the most recent comment was
| 7 days ago, and there were quite a few more in the past month.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1636070400&dateRange=custom&...
| jawns wrote:
| To understand the state of Wolfram Alpha, you have to understand
| the guy behind it.
|
| Wolfram Alpha was a pet project of Stephen Wolfram, the creator
| of Mathematica. He had grand visions for it. And for the first
| few years, it seemed like he was doubling down on it.
|
| But then he got bored and started tackling a bigger problem: his
| own solution to the "theory of everything" problem -- something
| that has eluded the world's best physicists for decades.
|
| But he was confident that he could best them all. Because he
| created Mathematica.
|
| The scientific community wasn't having it:
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-critic...
| katzgrau wrote:
| I'm not sure you intend it, but your comment kind of makes
| Wolfram sounds like some sort of crank.
|
| He's a leading thinker obsessively interested in this idea that
| everything around us is the product of a simple, fundamental
| ruleset.
|
| He's sitting on the bleeding edge of human knowledge where,
| honestly, everyone is at risk of being full of shit. Scientific
| consensus isn't really any kind of indicator of future
| breakthroughs.
|
| To each their own - let Wolfram be Wolfram.
| cleansingfire wrote:
| He has done some exciting work, but he hasn't done any
| physics in ages. If you don't (by choice or ability) do the
| work to prove your ideas, you can't expect anyone else to. If
| he wants to revolutionize physics, he can't leave that to
| others. That attitude is a defining characteristic of a
| crank.
|
| Cranks can do good work, but when they get out of their depth
| and don't realize it, blaming everyone else, that's when they
| become cranks.
|
| I like Wolfram, and I think there are some interesting and
| fundamental insights in among the relentless self promotion,
| but ANKOS is a painful read, even though I find cellular
| automata a fascinating model.
| rangodang wrote:
| His work is very interesting, and much of it novel, but it's
| the way he presents it that makes him a crank. Claiming he
| has a grand unified theory of physics and all that.
| ModernMech wrote:
| They don't make him sound like a crank, but like a
| narcissist, which Wolfram definitely is. Not that it's really
| a bad thing, most lang devs are a little narcissistic in my
| experience. Comes with the territory. But the guy named his
| language after himself. No one does that! Creating a language
| is already a very ego-driven endeavor, but naming it after
| yourself is next-level egoist.
| glenstein wrote:
| He is both a crank and an innovator, and comments regarding
| his crankery are perfectly appropriate.
|
| I think his "new kind of science" needs to be singled out
| from Wolfram alpha and Mathematica as especially crank-ish.
| It appears to be an attempt at a grand foundational
| philosophical statement, but it doesn't interact with pre-
| existing literature that covers similar territory, conveys
| ideas with pictures and informal statements without robust
| definitions, doesn't have an underlying bedrock of concepts
| or uniform vocabulary, and doesn't have the focus or clarity
| of purpose to rise to the level of being right or wrong. And
| it nevertheless maintains a grandiose tone of establishing an
| entirely new domain of science
|
| It's not necessarily wrong, but it is unfortunately very
| vague and concerningly childish, even though I think it does
| have some meaningful things to say. It's a very fair example
| in favor of crankery.
| ddeck wrote:
| For those interested in hearing about his theory/work, Sean
| Carroll (theoretical physicist) did a very long podcast with
| him about it.
|
| I'd highly recommend Sean's podcast in general for those
| interested in physics topics and prefer a more technical
| discussion that the usual physics podcasts.
|
| https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/07/12/155-...
| dmos62 wrote:
| > But he was confident that he could best them all. Because he
| created Mathematica.
|
| That's unkind, and that's definitely not what he says.
| [deleted]
| spindle wrote:
| This question reminds me of the time someone wrote to the letters
| page of a print publication (I think it was The New Statesman)
| asking "Whatever happened to the composer of the theme music for
| Trumpton?" (a popular children's TV series in the 1960s) and the
| composer wrote back saying "What do you mean whatever happened to
| me?"
| isoprophlex wrote:
| I use it exclusively when I'm drunk, to calculate how drunk I am
|
| "4 drinks in 3 hours at 64 kg"
| gadrev wrote:
| I can't beleive this works.
| huhtenberg wrote:
| I don't think it's accurate though. It says I'd be at around
| half of the DUI limit after 2 glasses of wine in one hour.
| That's certainly not right.
| m0zg wrote:
| And it can't ever be accurate. Thing is, how drunk you're
| going to get within some time frame depends on what (and
| how much) you're eating, and whether your stomach had some
| food in it before you started drinking. If there's stuff in
| your stomach, its sphincter is closed while it's digesting
| it. Stomach itself absorbs alcohol (and nutrients) much
| slower than the intestine.
|
| TL;DR: don't rely on this calculator to determine if you're
| too hammered to drive. If there's any doubt whatsoever,
| call an Uber or use public transportation.
| threwawasy1228 wrote:
| How much do you weigh? That sounds close to right for most
| people I think.
| timdaub wrote:
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4000+beers+in+2+hours+...
| vortico wrote:
| 1. It's slow, even for simple microsecond computations like
| log(2). Takes about 5-20 seconds to load a page on my 1Gb fiber
| connection. Opening Python/SymPy Gamma is much faster for most
| things. https://gamma.sympy.org/input/?i=log%282%29
|
| 2. Every time I use it, a box saying NEW: Use
| textbook math notation to enter your math. TRY IT
|
| pops up over the result, and clicking the X doesn't hide it the
| next time I search. This adds ~3 seconds to the result time.
|
| 3. I'm a long-term Mathematica user, but typing literal
| Mathematica syntax usually never works, except for simple
| expressions.
|
| 4. Results are PNGs, and copy-pasting a numerical result takes a
| few unnecessary clicks. "Plain Text" > Copy.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| > Opening Python/SymPy Gamma is much faster for most things.
|
| Is there a way to make it plot multivariate functions? I tried
| but whenever I enter two variables it says "Cannot plot
| multivariate function." I've seen many Python packages plotting
| multivariate functions so I'm convinced it should be possible.
| vortico wrote:
| I don't think so. You'd need to run it in a terminal with
| something like from sympy.plotting import
| plot3d x,y=symbols('x y') plot3d(x*y, (x,
| -10,10), (y, -10,10))
| quotemstr wrote:
| > Takes about 5-20 seconds to load a page on my 1Gb fiber
| connection
|
| Wolfram Alpha is implemented in Mathematica, which --- to
| understate the situation --- was never intended as a high
| performance backend server language. I suspect that's the
| reason for the bad performance.
|
| "As a result, the five million lines of Mathematica code that
| make up Wolfram|Alpha are equivalent to many tens of millions
| of lines of code in a lower-level language like C, Java, or
| Python." [1]
|
| Sure, there's something to be said for implementing logic in
| high-level code, but without a plan for lowering that high-
| level logic to machine code in a way that performs well, you're
| setting yourself up for long-term pain.
|
| [1] https://blog.wolframalpha.com/2009/05/01/the-secret-
| behind-t...
| vortico wrote:
| I doubt the bad performance is due to evaluating expressions
| itself. If I type N[Log[2]] into Mathematica, it evaluates in
| less than a millisecond. It's probably because Wolfram Alpha
| is using natural language process to try to process my query
| and then finally deciding that by N[Log[2]], I mean
| N[Log[2]]. And it's probably not because of that, but because
| their grid scheduler isn't optimized for sub-second latency.
| loo wrote:
| Ha, hearing the word "process" in Wolfram's voice, there.
| [deleted]
| herpderperator wrote:
| Your Internet bandwidth is not relevant when talking about a
| compute-heavy backend like this. Wolfram|Alpha is not going to
| load any faster on a 1Gbps connection than it will on a 20Mbps
| connection, other than some static assets, but even that isn't
| going to be hugely noticeable if we're talking about 2ms RTT on
| fibre vs 8-20ms RTT on cable/DSL. If you're downloading a giant
| file off a nearby CDN, then sure, 1Gbps fibre is useful. I can
| max out my 1400Mbps cable connection downloading things this
| way (it's mind-blowing...), and my latency to my upstream
| gateway outside of my house is 8ms. But Wolfram|Alpha isn't
| going to load 40% faster for me than it will for you since it's
| I/O bound and your end-to-end latency is waiting for the
| backend to complete your request.
|
| I will say, though, that Wolfram|Alpha could be "optimised" in
| the sense that it could do less fancy JS and be a simple box
| with a submit button, like SymPy Gamma.
| vortico wrote:
| If I didn't include that note, someone would say "Is is slow
| because you're on 56kbps dial-up?"
| canadaduane wrote:
| I think that's the point. "My internet speed is fast enough
| that it is not the cause of slowness, so any delay is all on
| Wolfram|Alpha."
| antattack wrote:
| "how many 3mm circles pack in 15mm circle"
|
| WA offers answers with drawings. Google cannot do that.
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+3mm+circles+p...
| hawkjo wrote:
| This is amazing! The rest of this thread completely buried the
| lead. Delightful.
| germanjoey wrote:
| You're severely underselling Google's incapability, e.g.
| https://i.imgur.com/UoIZSU2.png
| krisoft wrote:
| I don't understand the problem. You are asking what is 48*6,
| and the correct answer is right at the top.
| dylan604 wrote:
| WTactualF? When has * ever been anything other than
| multiplication? Why would the resulting links all be
| discussing division?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think Google search doesn't include the special symbols,
| so it's like searching "48 6".
| thisisnotatest wrote:
| This is correct. In this query, the '*' is being
| disregarded. Then, I assume, more people on the internet
| discuss 48 and 6 in the context of long division than in
| the context of multiplication.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| I don't know, I was looking for "how to configure cors
| for specific vhost in nginx" and all I got was Apache SO
| links. Had to use -apache.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Use verbatim search too. All words must exist without
| aliasing.
|
| (google aliases ubuntu and debian, john/jon/Johnathan for
| example)
| ghostly_s wrote:
| >google aliases ubuntu and debian,
|
| WHAT the FUCK. Is there a more convenient way to bypass
| this than "quoting" "every" "word?"
| emmelaich wrote:
| click tools -> show all results -> verbatim
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| I get increasingly frustrated by the spammy SO mirroring
| spam sites getting into the top 3 results.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Oh yeah there's that too and now I also get them in other
| languages than English but they are just Google translate
| version of SO.
| stevage wrote:
| I'm not certain but in this context * may be a wildcard.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So what you're saying is that google sucks at context
| clues
| utopcell wrote:
| It clearly understands enough to trigger displaying the
| calculator.
| wheels wrote:
| I use it semi-regularly; once a week or so. It's a genuinely
| useful tool that was just greatly oversold on launch. Things I
| use it for:
|
| - Converting units while cooking. I prefer to cook by weight, and
| for most ingredients, you can do something like "2 cups of flour
| in g"
|
| - Stuff I'd have used a scientific calculator in an earlier era:
| simple systems of equations, plots, etc.
|
| - Comparing stats on countries, e.g. GDP growth in various
| countries
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| The issue with recipe weight unit conversions might be that the
| author literally had a cup or spoon or whatever with a specific
| capacity which would not equal the standard units, therefore
| you are converting one inaccurate amount to an other one.
| robbiep wrote:
| If that's the case, then the issue is immaterial
| delecti wrote:
| It's safe to assume any recipe written in the last 50 years
| is using the standardized units. It isn't literally 100%
| true, but close enough that it's not worth worrying about.
| wheels wrote:
| I'm not arguing in this case that it's more accurate, just
| that it's sometimes easier: if I've got a mixing bowl on a
| scale, I find it easier to pour things in by weight rather
| than to measure them all out. On recipes I often cook, I edit
| / write in the weight in grams to speed things up.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| For me it stopped working several years ago and wouldn't ever
| return answers for queries. I futzed about with it to try and
| make it work; came back a few times over a couple of years as I
| had been a big fan. Just assumed they'd killed it somehow.
| Mentioned it on HN and others said it worked. For some reason it
| works again for me now -- it not working allowed me to discover
| Geogebra, which was nice and served a lot of my previous uses for
| WA.
| kergonath wrote:
| I use it a couple of times a week. Sometimes it's brilliant, and
| sometimes I have to find my answer somewhere else. Most of the
| time it does its job.
| tdeck wrote:
| Since nobody is mentioning it, around that time Wolfram Alpha
| started paywalling a lot of the more useful features. I used to
| use it in school and stopped when that happened. I'm not sure if
| they changed course since then.
| fzzzy wrote:
| I still use it frequently for any random calculations.
| Ros2 wrote:
| I only ever use it for date math
|
| For whatever reason, I like keeping track of 1000 day
| anniversaries
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1000+days+after+today
|
| Shortly before any kind of 3rd anniversary or birthday I try to
| remember to check this.
| tshaddox wrote:
| You might like this little toy website I made a couple of years
| ago:
|
| https://interesting-anniversaries.com/
|
| From my readme:
|
| "Have you ever wanted to know when you turn 2 billion seconds
| old? How about 33,333,333 minutes old? When do you get to
| celebrate your 555,555th hour of life? As it turns out, all
| three of those milestones occur in the same 24-hour period!"
| Ros2 wrote:
| Wow Hackernews never ceases to amaze me, I enjoyed this. TIL
| I missed my 1 billionth second. You should also make a
| programmer mode, one that shows you powers of 2 (like 1024
| days old)
| neltnerb wrote:
| What do you mean? I used it to solve a nasty impedance network
| for the real and imaginary components yesterday and the solutions
| were accurate.
|
| Edit: Maybe it's just good enough that people treat it as a tool
| and see no need to market it. It consistently has worked fine-ish
| for years and is useful at what it does.
| zandorg wrote:
| My meaning was just that I saw it sometimes referenced on HN,
| but I haven't seen it mentioned for a while now. Hence my
| search and results showing 8 years since.
|
| I guess what I should be doing is looking at the Alexa ranking
| of Wolfram Alpha.
| pvg wrote:
| You should search comments, rather than stories. It's very
| regularly referenced in HN comments, often for calculations,
| sometimes in other contexts.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.
| ..
| zandorg wrote:
| Fair enough. I was definitely searching comments (not
| stories), but I might not have filtered by Date, hence the
| lack of recent results.
| asxd wrote:
| I appreciate the conversation around WA this Ask HN has
| started, but yeah you've basically completely answered the
| original question by pointing this out.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| They're just serving up answers which is boring to HN
| readers. Where's the drama in collecting data privately?
| Where's the drama from censoring results? No drama == No
| interest? Gawd, I have become cynical.
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| Could please share your query / code to do this? Seems like it
| would make a good Example. Thanks!
| bawolff wrote:
| I imagine it just stopped being new.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| The name makes it seem like pre-beta test software.
|
| I'm waiting for the final release, and then I'm waiting some
| more for it to be declared stable, and then I'm waiting some
| more for it to catch on and be declared popular.
|
| Not really, but that's what the name suggests to me.
|
| I just tried it here because of TFA and it's good.
| bborud wrote:
| A more important question: what happened to Wolfram? I think they
| missed an opportunity to have an enormous market by pricing
| themselves into a niche. They had so much cool stuff that could
| have played a much larger role in most developers lives. And
| which would have funneled more users into higher end premium
| products.
|
| Every now and then I go to their site to have a look -- and then
| realize that I'm not going to go subscribe to some piece of
| software I'm unsure I will be using enough to justify the cost.
| lelandbatey wrote:
| I still use it all the time fore unit conversions, odd time based
| questions, etc. I find it's way better than the Google results
| because if I think of something after the fact I can tack it on
| and WA figures it out better than Google. E.g. "12 ft to meters *
| 3" is not handled right by Google but is handled how I want by
| WA.
| JanMa wrote:
| I used it a lot while pursuing my electrical engineering degree.
| It's ability to solve almost any mathematical formula and to show
| you the solution step by step is just plain awesome.
|
| I guess it's safe to say I would not have passed some algebra and
| electrical engineering exams without it.
|
| One tip I have (not sure if it still works though): Buy the
| Android or iOS app for a few bucks to get access to the step by
| step solutions if you can't afford the pro subscription.
| nerevarthelame wrote:
| Siri and Alexa pass a lot of questions to Wolfram Alpha.
|
| When Apple first started using it, they were responsible for 25%
| of all WA traffic. With Alexa, I assume that the majority of WA's
| queries are coming from smart assistants at this point.
| (https://9to5mac.com/2012/02/07/four-months-in-siri-represent...,
| https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/20/18150654/alexa-wolfram-a...)
| tshaddox wrote:
| It's still there, and I use it regularly, probably several times
| per week.
| erikig wrote:
| I still use it regularly too - even more so after listening to
| Stephen Wolfram's 3 part podcast [1] with Lex Fridman where he
| discussed the latest developments in Wolfram, Mathematica etc
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/ez773teNFYA
| [deleted]
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| I mainly use it as an english dictionary of math terminology.
|
| Although for the basics of differential geometry like the
| Weingarten equations and the Dupin indicatrix WA is lacking - as
| is Wikipedia except for the articles in the german Wikipedia. And
| I haven't found a way to get to the 'Weingarten equations'
| searching for 'Weingarten', you only find him by the full name
| 'Julius Weingarten'. :(
|
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weingartenabbildung
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weingarten+equations
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indikatrix
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=dupin+indikatrix
| peheje wrote:
| If only there was some way to contribute to the english wiki
| (article or search) when you are lucky enough to understand the
| (better) german one...
|
| :-)
| ReleaseCandidat wrote:
| That's a bit recursive. I'd have needed english translations
| of the german articles to get to know the english math terms
| to be able to write about them in english :)
| ncmncm wrote:
| It just can't answer the questions I have. Last time I tried it,
| I was looking for buoyancy of various gases, but it insisted any
| such question necessarily referred to stuff on water.
|
| It did OK figuring the fake "temperature" of LHC beams that
| fusion people like to quote because they sound more impressive
| than GeV.
| onedognight wrote:
| I use it regularly. Sometimes it's broken, and maybe nobody
| notices but me? :)
|
| Their natural language queries for things that I know they know
| about are amazing. Here are some that I have used recently. You
| really need to see these results to appreciate them.
|
| I wanted to know how tall my daughter might be.
| 8 year old female 55 lbs
|
| http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=8%20year%20old%20female...
|
| I wanted to know the nutrition content of an egg sandwich.
| 1 egg, two slices whole wheat bread, one slice of cheddar, two
| pieces of bacon
|
| http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%20egg%2C%20two%20slic...
|
| I was curious about the relative usage of two names over time.
| Michael, Henry
|
| http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Michael%2C%20Henry
| sixothree wrote:
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=stars+in+the+observabl...
| sliq wrote:
| wow, typing "8 year old female" into a search engine might
| cause some trouble
| named-user wrote:
| Why would it?
| thro1 wrote:
| Just asked a friend about this:
|
| > 1 egg, two slices whole wheat bread, one slice of cheddar,
| two.. _leaves of lettuce_ ..
|
| and he said _it 's wrong and useless_ (!) - giving me examples
| and numbers as:
|
| _protein assimilability from bread is 40%_ etc.
|
| Is there a way to get correct answers from Wolfram regarding
| this ?
|
| ( _assimilability of_ doesn 't work)
|
| Edit: Excuse me, what's wrong with you downvoters - it's a
| legit question. Or is there something wrong with
| _assimilability_? Are you happy being off with your answers by
| 60% - or jealous that a human can have better answers?
| LordOfWolves wrote:
| It might help to explain what your friend says is "wrong and
| useless" so others could provide feedback.
|
| It also might help to avoid insinuating things about
| strangers online in order to promote discussion and not
| stifle it.
| thro1 wrote:
| Thanks for your human feedback. Downvotes happened before
| my excuse.
| onion2k wrote:
| Wolfram isn't reporting how much protein you'll get from
| eating something; it's reporting how much there is in the
| bread. Protein assimilation depends on a huge range of
| factors, and varies significantly between individuals (based
| on everything from gut microbiome to health factors to how
| much you chew your food to your saliva production to... Well,
| it's a long list). There's no way a website could report the
| amount of protein _you_ will get from bread. Reporting how
| much is in the bread makes much more sense. It 's a shame
| your friend didn't explain that.
|
| This is something that actually annoys me immensely when
| people say "you eat too much!" to fat people. Two people can
| have the _exact same diet_ and the exact same exercise
| regime, and if one assimilates particular foods more
| effectively they 'll be getting more calories, and put on
| weight. Food intake is far more complex than many people
| believe.
| ISL wrote:
| Yeah; I use it for the occasional repeating specialized query,
| but have never broadened my usage to anything more-general.
| skinkestek wrote:
| The sandwich example was brilliant! I never expected that to be
| possible (the example of packing smaller circles in a larger
| one in another comment is also brilliant but less useful for me
| today I think.)
| BelenusMordred wrote:
| > You really need to see these results to appreciate them.
|
| Seems more like the quality of the queries rather than the
| results. Many of the complaints I see about google and friends
| is related to them dumbing down search for the global common
| denominator.
| mike_d wrote:
| Also a frequent WA user. I use it for things I could calculate,
| but are much faster to just ask in plain text.
|
| How much that cloud instance really costs
| $0.03/hr * 1 month
|
| Bandwidth calculations for hosting providers 10
| TB per month in Mbps
| maneesh wrote:
| I use Google for those pretty often.
| mejutoco wrote:
| I do the same for basic calculations. I was surprised
| things like 9:00 EST in CET don't work in google search,
| but do in WA.
| einarvollset wrote:
| Works for me: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=9%3A0
| 0%20EST%20in%20CE...
| Keyframe wrote:
| You also might want to try google search. They display
| calculations for these particular queries and quite a few
| more.
| 5- wrote:
| you might want to try units(1).
|
| https://www.gnu.org/software/units/units.html
|
| the input language is less flexible than wolframalpha/google,
| but i quickly got used to it. it's nice to have something
| local and reliable. you can also define custom units.
|
| i prefer using it in terse mode: $ units -t
| 0.03$/hr*1month 21.914532 US$ $ units -t
| 10TB/month Mbps 30.421214
| avmich wrote:
| For calculator problems like that, I use J:
| */ 0.03 24 30
|
| 21.6 1e6 %~ (10e12 * 8) % */ 30 24 3600
|
| 30.8642
|
| Usually requires some massaging, but still takes seconds.
| Laremere wrote:
| Yeah, it's great for these types of things. It also has a
| bunch of values built in, so you can do things like:
| (day length of jupiter) * 80
| yummypaint wrote:
| I used to use it extensively during my early PhD work for back of
| the envelope calculations. Unfortunately it became steadily
| harder to enter queries and have them understood. About half a
| decade ago they broke about 70% of what i used it for by refusing
| to show results for modestly complex calculations and instead
| throwing up nag messages for the paid version. The paid version
| last i saw was not available through an institutional license.
|
| Last time I tried to use retrieval features for nuclear data
| there was absolutely no citation info or documentation
| whatsoever, just numbers from who knows where. WA had so much
| potential but peaked about 3 years after it came out as far as i
| can tell. That being said it's still vastly superior to doing
| calculations with google.
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