Enter Wolfram|Alpha: 1 - intro

Today is the first time I could finally use the interface of Wolfram Alpha (wkp) for my own personal tests and tricks.

Those of you who haven't seen as much SciFi as I may not be as astounded as you should. If you don't know what Wolfram|Alpha is yet, don't worry, it appears to have been kept secret until the preview. There's a completely mind boggling screencast available, showing off some basic usage, and an extensive compendium of example queries.

The examples areas vary wildly among several scientific areas, such as Mathematics, Physics, Engineering and Statistics (not surprisingly, since they're the creators of the arguably popular Mathematica app (wkp), which is also at least one of the backends of the whole deal), and of course, the very food for thought that made it possible, like CS, Web and Linguistics. There are also some very data-centric areas such as Unit conversion and Nutrition facts. Again, not at all surprising, yet (but wait, we're not there yet).

Considering the background from where it came, there are also other less obvious areas represented in the example sections, such as Life Sciences, Earth Sciences, Finances, Geography and Socioeconomic data, Meteorology. From a first look, the example section seems to encompass everything, the one encyclopedia to rule them all. Understandable absences are Human areas, but these areas have problems of their own.

If you paid attention to the screencast above, you noted that you don't have to make queries in standard query form (simplified version of the full phrases you actually think before querying): you can actually make questions in standard English. Although this is not new (Altavista could back in the day), the way it parses the information in the query is very impressive. Not only it has an almost telepathic ability to understand what you mean, even if you're not really sure how to question, it shows (and this is new for me) how it is parsing.

For example, from the screencast, if you type Springfield, you'll find out it's a very popular name for city, and Wolfram Alpha tells you it's assuming you're referring to the one in Massachusetts, and displays a wealth of data about it. If you want another Springfield, you can simply choose from a dropdown, and it will then show the pertinent data available.

For another example, I asked it "who are you" (trying to be cheeky), and was immediately knocked out my chair when the result came:



I took a few seconds to acknowledge it was actually an error (those cheeky wolfram people). After I caught my breath, I pressed reload and got the correct answer:



OK, no singularity there, folks. Pheew...

The most freaking experience so far is when you try to cross between completely unrelated databases and get coherent answers. Like those abusive queries you see the movie and TV detectives cross impossibly huge databases to narrow down suspects, or find relationships between perps and vics. Or even those impossible queries from Star Trek, when Data asks the computer to... extrapolate! (Wolfram people, tell me this is on your TODO list).

And for those of you who can't stand computers when off duty, know that Wolfram Alpha may very well become the substitute to your personal favorite psychotherapist companion, since it apparently has a limited ability to "understand" famous quotes:


Asimov would be proud. I mean, as long as wolfram Alpha abides to the Three Laws. But of course, no one would be crazy to create a singularity unconstrained, right? (Right, Cyberdyne??)

Next, a follow up post with some interesting queries to get started.

\pi = 3.0. Exactly.

Nothing to say about this. How can people even take anything for granted, surrendering their own indivituality? Free will, anyone?

Vampire eco dynamics

What do you get when you mix fiction with science? You may have said sci-fi, but that's not all of it. You might also get fun science (as in, not necessarilly useful, purposeful or publishable science, just the kind of fun stuff you do in your free time).

Linked from pharyngula, I got the tip for a nice fun article someone posted in his (her?) family site. It looks like it may be a follow up to one of those meaningless conversations everyone likes to have among loved one and friends, but this guy actually did his homework to make his point - he did the math for the model, and simulations to get the equilibrium points. But that's not what I liked the most about it (although I like this kind of stuff a lot). I liked it that it's a funny

Just take a look at what I'm talking about:

In principle, ecologists might employ two basic strategies to get at a problem like this. The empiricists would go out and find a field site where they could actually observe predators and their prey, and just tally the results over time. The theoreticians would chuckle at the empiricists, and construct mathematical models that probably approximate the behavior of populations in the field, keeping their hands more or less clean in the process.
In real life, most ecologists use both strategies off and on. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any real life vampire populations in the field, so we’re going to have to pretend that we are strict theoreticians. That means that we’ll be using math: some algebra, some calculus, and some matrix theory. This is O.K.! It hurts a lot less than, say, getting bitten by a vampire as you’re trying to fit the bugger with a radio collar.

PDF of the article.

He could display little of the math and simulations, although I can see why he didn't. I would at least give the option to the curious reader to learn more, say, put the dirt in a supplemental PDF, or an appendix. Even though, it's