Announcing Wolfram Alpha Pro | Hacker News Reader

Announcing Wolfram Alpha Pro

blog.wolframalpha.com

241 pointscleverjake53 comments

I love Wolfram Alpha. Every time I think about it, I think it's a grand achievement and an absolutely amazing tool.

I just wish I had any idea what to do with it.

Once in a long while, I'll think of trying a query on it. Mostly for city populations, past Academy Award winners, etc. But I have nothing to do with it on a day-to-day basis.

What do Hacker News users use it for?

Mathematics. Plot a difficult function, search limits, derivatives, integrals... Wolfram is the master of calculus. It only fails when I make queries about sets.

Here too. I started relearning a lot of my old calculus techniques recently and Wolfram Alpha was superb for checking my solutions and plotting functions.

Mathematics indeed. It can handle complex integrals quite well too.

Wolfram alpha should be positioned as a web search supplement. Just like how if you put some math equation into google search, it will calculate it for you, wolfram alpha has to do the opposite and add a web search for you. It will then become significantly more useful, since every query will have a web search fallback. If they load it in parts, like duck duck go does, even better. I think duck duck go with more extensive wolfram alpha integration would work.

I really enjoy using duckduckgo, but both it and wolframalpha suffer from slow response time.

I'm confident that I could query google, duckduckgo and wolframalpha for any query that all three could answer ("diameter of a quarter" ) and have the answer in google and then have followed the link to the wikipedia article on the US quarter before the answer appeared in either wolframalpha or duckduckgo.

In fact, I just checked, that's the case (for me at least). With wolframalpha I would have had time to enter the query into duckduckgo and then return to wolframalpha before the link I had to click to tell wolframalpha I meant "quarter" as a currency came up. Duckduckgo didn't answer the question for me, but it was a click away (so better than wolframalpha in that regard). I enjoy using wolframalpha for the things that I know have easy answers (populations, distances and measurements of celestial bodies, time measurements--30 days ago) and give concrete numbers, but would require slightly more effort to pull out of wikipedia.

I should test exact page load times for those queries from several geographically distinct locations on multiple browsers, but it's late and I'm now going to bed.

I use the traffic query a lot (e.g. 'traffic google.com'). You can also pit sites against each other:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=dropbox.com+vs+airbnb.c...

Great, that's useful. The only problem is "Based on Alexa estimates". It could be even better if they included more data sources e.g. Google Trends and Compete.

I use it for converting time across time zones. It's awesome for that: e.g. "12am PST in CET"

I mostly use it for one-off math queries that my TI-89 can't handle. (Or when my TI-89 is put away somewhere.) Most recently I've been using it for Laplace and Inverse Laplace transforms, they also recently added the ability to "show steps" when solving differential equations too which is neat. It's tremendously helpful for getting work done with the results instead of spending time trying to calculate them by hand. I'm still wondering what sorts of ramifications their "show steps" feature has for any math education where it's applicable, hopefully it's putting less focus on homework and more on testing.

It's an awesome tool for academy. I've found myself using it all the time for my undergrad homework: Everything from finding the inverse of a given matrix to plotting out the results for output to the assignment.

Admittedly I haven't found myself using it much for anything else.

I'm always amazed when I see the "Show Steps" button. You can learn a ton of things by just looking through the steps WA took to arrive at the result of a complicated derivative or integral.

I personally use it for tasks involving Linear Algebra, too, e.g. calculating eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors.

I also installed the Wolfram Alpha Chrome extension, which I use quite often and always comes in quite handy: http://www.wolframalpha.com/downloads.html

I used Mathematica for this. For every math class I had a designated Mathematica notebook that ended up being a summary of the course by the end.

I used it to help my mom convert her American recipes to metric units, including trickier queries like "how much is 1/2 cup of butter in grams?" for which you need to know the density of butter.

And problem sets of course, because typing in physical constants and converting units is annoying.

Oh, and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3521445 ("orbital velocity of ISS in mach").

Anytime I need a result that requires knowledge of some quantity, I usually try Wolfram|Alpha first.

What do Hacker News users use it for? I use it to solve mathematics problems when my rusty skills fail me. Best example:

I needed to see what a pulse, f(t), specified as ten coordinates looked like after passing it through a transfer function:

            as^2 + bs + c
  H(s) =  ---------------------
          ds^3 + es^2 + gs + m

a,b,c,d,e,g,m are constants.

I haven't dealt with that sort of problem since university, about two decades ago. Reading a couple of wikipedia articles about transfer functions and laplace transforms reminded me of what needed doing, but I kept getting stuck in a thicket of terms.

I then tried feeding the problem to Wolfram Alpha. That worked for a simplified version of the problem, but I couldn't give it the full problem because Wolfram Alpha limits the query length.

I ended up installing a trial copy of Mathematica. That did exactly what I wanted. It was enormously satisfying, but Mathematica has a high price tag and I only need to do this sort of thing once every few years. Next time, I'll take a look at the price and be tempted.

But maybe Wolfram Alpha pro is enough of a step closer to Mathematica to deal with my next problem. That would be great.

(There are other ways to solve the above problem, e.g. with a Z transform. But doing it analytically was far more satisfying and gave me confidence in the result.)

My girlfriend is an attorney and uses it for date calculations. If you need the delta between two dates, it's not a bad way to go.

I use it for financial data on compagnies. For example, you can find out that Apple makes 521,000$ profit per employee per quarter: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=apple+profit%2Femployee...

I'd love to build a widget that would inform me of how many years/weeks/days old I am.

As a matter of fact.. to the nerdcave!

I found Wolfram Alpha to be immensely useful when doing chemistry work back in undergrad. Just input a chemical compound and see what it spits out. Now imagine being able to call any of those pieces of data during calculations using a string, e.g. "molecular mass of Na2SO4". Very convenient, simplifies many calculations.

Another thing that may seem obvious, but you can input multiple strings and get a nice visual comparison. For example, try "cleveland, detroit, flint".

I remember coming across a group of other students who were getting into a argument about a tricky calculation required for a chemical analysis pre-lab. After this had gone back and forth for maybe 5 minutes, I pulled out my laptop and settled it in about 15 seconds, which was pretty fun.

Helping your high school student with homework. They might be honing their skills factoring 5th order polynomials with complex roots, you can keep right up with Wolfram Alpha.

I use it for calculating the nutritional value of meals. See this for an example: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+lb+chicken+breast%2C+...

The dumbest of things - quickly calculating the number of days between two dates.

This is a huge. It's so easy to make mistakes doing those computations by hand, but Wolfram Alpha handles it with ease. I use it all the time.

Well, an example from yesterday -- while troubleshooting an electronic circuit, I wanted to know (roughly) how long I can survive without external power, given that there is a 10uF capacitor powered at 3V.

Nothing revolutionary, but it's nice that you can just enter "10uF * 3V" into Wolfram Alpha and get the answer both in coulombs and A*s (which is what I really needed), all the while confirming what you think the relations are.

So I'd say I use it as a smart calculator that also assures me my thinking is correct.

That's exactly what I use it for most of the time. Byzantine calculations using random units and it usually gets it right. Awesome.

But Google can do that too.

Just search for "10 microfarads * 3 V in amp seconds"

My calculator can do that, too. But the question was what people use Alpha for, so I answered with a (simple) example.

It's great for calculations, conversions, and random information. Examples:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2F2+an+avacado http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.8TB+in+kilobytes

There are some other cool ones you can use, such as "planes overhead", "satellites overhead"

All that said: I generally think that if I was smarter I'd be able to use it for more stuff :)

I use it all the time for mixed unit equations and conversions.

I just used it to calculate how many days 1 million seconds was, but I didn't need it for that obv. I just love that I can give it plain text. We needed the answer to tell us how long a relay was good for worst-case :)

The thing I wish they would do is have data analysis/visualization API. I send data in predefined supported formats ("User Retention Data", "Google Advertising Campaign", etc) and they send back deep/amazing/interactive/visualization reports.

Some companies have tried to create reporting/dashboard services, but I bet Wolfram could do far better job than anyone else has. I could easily see tens of thousands of businesses powering their back office dashboards off Wolfram and paying $100-$200/mo for the privilege.

http://www.tableausoftware.com/

Thanks. I think actually checked them out previously and just did again. I'm sure it was my allergy to "Contact us for pricing", and server software that runs on Windows, that put me off trying it myself. I guess that's "Enterprise" software for you. Maybe it's worth the pain in this case. Those graphics are perty.

A very prevalent allergy.

It's a bit buried, but Tableau Public is available for free download.

http://www.tableausoftware.com/public

I forget what its limitations are but I remember thinking they weren't too bad.

Also I think your larger point still stands. Tableau is great, but there's still room for more vertically customized analytical reporting.

The problem with Wolfram Alpha is this: it's awesome when a query works, but often it either doesn't understand your query on the first try, or it just doesn't have the data or computation you're after.

Siri has the same UI problem. You either have to read through the list of commands and memorize a few, or you have to deal with the constant frustration of trying something three times before giving up and doing it manually.

That said, these UIs are fun for a coder. :-) It'd be cool if somebody were to track and curate interesting Wolfram Alpha queries in a blog/tumblr/subreddit. The closest thing I could find was this:

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-search-terms-put-wolfram-alp...

Dude did you look at the link?

The new features are all about bypassing that. You just give it the data, instead of a language-esque query.

And there is a lot more UI too, for manipulating plots and such.

Sorry, I guess I went off on a tangent not directly related to the link you posted. :-) You're absolutely right. Have you used the new Wolfram Alpha UIs for anything serious yet? How did you find them?

Speaking of UI, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=695582

That is huge. Completely changes the dynamic of how you can interact with Wolfram Alpha.

It is also sure to help plenty of new students with their homework in a completely different way.

As a sucker for 3D models, I was drooling all over this:

"When one says “downloading data”, one might think just of data behind tables and plots. But Wolfram|Alpha Pro can download all sorts of other data too: 3D geometry data (say to use for a modeling program or a 3D printer), sound data, graph connectivity data, molecular specification data, etc.—in altogether more than 60 formats."

Is it me or is the site running at an unbelievably slow pace right now?

Also: Large datasets can apparently screw off, their filesize limit is 1mb.

Wow. When they start offering site licenses for this, every university in the world is going to buy one.

(edit: my bad, they already do)

Has anyone actually used wolfram alpha regularly? What did you use it for? Not that I think its dumb (well... maybe I'm a little skeptical), but I just haven't thought of any way to use it.

I don't use it as much as Google or anything, but I find myself there once or twice a week. Usually it's things like geographic info (population, size), currency or timezone conversion, or various other sort of small things like that.

I enjoy it quite a bit, and I should probably use it for many more things.

Do you ever use google calculator? It does all of that only better. When I first tried duckduckgo I kept going back to google for the calculator. Then ddg added(or at least I discovered) !wa to search alpha directly, so now all the stuff I used to use google calculator goes to alpha.

I use it for quick social arguments and commentary a lot.

E.g., if you know the average age of a senator, and you want to know roughly what it was like when they were 18, you can do http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=minimum+wage+1969+adjus...

I breathed a sigh of relief. I was worried that Wolfram has been investing so much into Alpha, all the while not making any money from it. Such unstable arrangements do not last.

This looks like a viable way to earn money with that excellent service, which means it won't disappear any time soon. I'm glad to see that.

I love Wolfram Alpha and I'm definitely excited to trial the 'pro' version. I find it more helpful for looking up conversions, anything to do with money/finance and looking for a short history on stuff.

It's quite exciting watching what they do, definitely one of the few companies I respect, for some reason! :)

what kind of money/finance info do you find in this tool that you don't in yahoo or google finance?

I hate monthly subscriptions. I would much rather pay a flat fee. Why do no companies do this anymore?

Might have something to do with profits. Take a look at this calculation:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24299+as+percent+of+%2...

Query: how many edges has a complete graph?

Result: Consult complete graph.

So not a very intelligent algorithm, no AI

Reply on news.ycombinator.com