Fun With WolframAlpha

The jury’s still out on whether WolframAlpha.com will turn into a tool that is useful to solve real world computational problems, but it certainly is fun to play with.

Here are some cool Easter eggs (more here).

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Or try entering:

Where’s my car?
Who let the dog’s out? (Apostrophe needed.)
Which weighs more, a pound of gold or a pound of feathers?

No answers yet for:

Chocolate or vanilla?
Who’s on first?
Who made me?

I also recommend entering the names of your loved ones. For example, when I enter “Ian, Henry,” I learn that my name is slightly more popular than my son’s:

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But I also learn that most Ians in the United States are younger than I am, while most Henrys are older than my son:

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What’s really scary is when I put in the name of my 12-year-old daughter, Antonia:

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My beloved spouse and I thought we had independently chosen her name. But I’d love to hear any hypotheses to explain why the use of Antonia spiked 13 or 14 years ago.

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COMMENTS: 45

  1. Brian says:

    Also, my mother always said “He’d do as much as a dew drops dew if a dew drop did drop do.”

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  2. Brian says:

    Also, my mother always said, “He’d do as much as a dew drops dew if a dew drop did drop dew.”

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  3. ScottK says:

    Even though I tabbed it in IE, so far I haven’t found any use for aside from refreshing myself on math and chemistry I haven’t used since college.

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  4. X says:

    OK, I’ve just wasted five minutes of my life sending dumb questions to Wolfram|Alpha and hoping for intelligent answers.
    Some good ones I’ve found so far that should be included in the above lists of Easter eggs:
    Q: Are you Skynet? [That's reassuring.]
    Q: Who’s your daddy? [Fair enough.]
    Q: Who wrote the book of love? [I'm pretty sure it misunderstood me here.]
    Q: Where are my keys? [True enough.]

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  5. James McGarry says:

    Could it be related to Antonia’s Line which came out in 1995 and won an Oscar for best foriegn language film in ’96?

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112379/

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  6. Jason says:

    what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything? gives the correct response.

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  7. Scott ~K says:

    Q: What is the airspeed of an unladen swallow?

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  8. Carrie says:

    Theory for Antonia popularity-

    Movie came out with that title in 1995.
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112379/

    or maybe

    Willa Cather’s My Antonia was required reading for a year or two while people giving birth were in HS.

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