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May 19, 2009

Wolfram|Alpha Website Can Help You With Your Homework, and Much More

Well, kids! There's a search engine in town and it can help you out with your research papers and homework, that's for sure. The Wolfram|Alpha Computational Knowledge Engine provides information on a wide variety of topics, including math and science as well as animal kingdom info, and just about anything with units (time, volume, etc.)

So what is a computational knowledge engine and how is it different from a traditional search engine like Google or Yahoo? Traditional search engines generally take info (keywords) and return search results (websites), which you then go look at.

Wolfram|Alpha is a computational engine, so basically it takes input (a calculation) and spits out results (the answer to the calculation). For example, if you ask it what 2+2 equals, it answers 4, "four" and practically holds up four fingers to give you the visual answer. Those familiar with some of the Google's more advanced features (like its ability to do simple math and currency conversion and stock picks) will find the new Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine familiar.

The Wolfram|Alpha web engine can help you with your pre-calc homework by acting as a graphing calculator, or give you the real probability of drawing four aces in a deck of cards (provided you don't stack the deck). Trying to remember how to compute the perimeter of a right triangle? No problem.

But this new website resource does way more than just math. For every field-whether its biology, chemistry, physics, geography or health-there are databases full of information, not to mention formulas and equations, upon which these sciences are based. For example, you can compute the nutritional information of an apple, OR you could compute the combined nutritional information of your whole breakfast: "apple+banana+hazelnuts 15g+ 1 cup non-fat yogurt"

Some other fun computations:

See what your night sky will look like on the Fourth of July with the star charts, such as the one shown below.

Determine where the lion fits into the Animal Kingdom or the current weather in your town. What about checking the tides so you can plan when to go surfing?

Morse code, anyone?

Posted by sorsha at May 19, 2009 9:16 AM