Wolfram Alpha v Google

... and it just got a lot better with its 'widget' application. Essentially, Wolfram Alpha (WA) is a solution waiting for the problem that you want to find a solution for... you just have not thought of it yet. Built in to its structure are some incredibly complex but easy to use tools to do just this. Quite frankly, the extensive capabilities of WA can be somewhat overwhelming. This is both its strength and weakness. Similarly, if I were to try and compare WA with Google it would obfuscate the benefits of using both. So, let me try and scratch the surface of the power of WA and show where, in certain circumstances, it is significantly superior to Google or Google just is not up to the mark. Equally, Google is better at other aspects of searching; one of its weaknesses is that it returns ranked results that incorporate a level of 'popularity' or 'newness' along with 'relevance'. Often, when you wish to search for the facts you end up receiving a mixed bag of results that do not necessarily meet your needs. As a simple example, were you to have searched yesterday for "Margalla' the results returned would have been predominantly about the Margalla Hills to the north of Islamabad. Today, obviously, as a result of the AirBlue crash, many of the 'factual' results are being drowned out be the story. It is one of the key weaknesses that I perceive in the Google algorithm. Perhaps these simple examples will show what I mean. For these examples, open separate tabs/windows in your browser for: www.google.com www.wolframalpha.com In both, type the word "Weather" and hit 'Google Search' or the WA '=' (compute) icon. See what I mean? 380,000,000 is a lot of irrelevancy and pointless returning of results you could never really address (bad joke - sorry). WA on the other hand?? Clever or what? Now let us try something else. "torque mild steel 0.2cm" Which is more relevant or useful? How about "distance in cm from london to bejing"? or "500gm of flour and 50gm of sugar" Wolfram Alpha has many examples of how to use it. Enjoy.