Alpha is Up and Running

Like the title implies, Wolfram Alpha is now up. Go take a look at this wonderful search engine...... oops "Computational Knowledge Engine" as the creators call it.

Search for Chennai and it will show you details about Chennai's population and a map of India with Chennai marked on it. Search for chocolate mousse (the next bit is gonna scare the weight watchers among us ;-) ) and you'll get all the details on its nutritional value.

The above displays the way one can integrate {(square root of x) multiplied by cos x}.





Enter "US Dollar to Indian Rupee" and it'll show you not just the present conversion rate, but this year's maximum and minimum as well as a graph describing the fluctuation in rates over the past year. Enter any mathematical formula, anything right from Taylor's Series to something as simple as 10^sin(x) and you'll get your answer along with a diagrammatic representation.

The musically inclined like me (yes, I play the keyboard/piano) can search for scales (for example C#minor) and get the scale graphically represented on a piano's keys along with the sound for the scale being played and the notes written below.

I tried searching for GPS and I was able to obtain altitude, azimuth, velocity, orbital period, inclination and a skymap showing the relative positions of the GPS satellites from Chennai. Pretty awesome.

I wouldn't really say "Watch out Google" , yet. But this does have potential.

All the data is presented on a single page, and its all very neatly organised and laid out.
Be sure to give this tool a spin, its great fun and quite useful for scientific studies too.