Wolfram Alpha is my vote for the absolute coolest web site of the year. Ever since it went live in May, this site has gotten better and more interesting as I use it. If you can get past the name, this site should be bookmarked and/or added to your search bar. What is it? Well, its not a “search engine”, its a computational engine. Here is what Wolfram Alpha says:
Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.
WAlpha, as I call it, is as simple to use as Google. Its a useful site because it gives you information or results you just cant find on a normal search engine such as data, stats, calculations, and comparisons. This is especially useful for students or anyone gathering data or stats. Just remember, you can’t use WAlpha to find web sites; use it rather to find information.
Quick examples:
Find info about any zip code. Type “zip code 33169″ It not only shows you where the zip code is but also population information.
Find food information: type “food apple” and get not just the nutritional information but also its “alcoholic content” and mineral breakdown.
Find species information: type “lion” and get the scientific name for Lion and its taxonomy.
Find the answer to an Algebraic equation: type “x^3 – 4x^2 + 6x – 24 = 0″ and get the “alternate form” and the solution
Try it out yourself and you will spend hours playing with it.
More reading:
Wolfram Alpha as important as Google
