WEBVTT - Wolfram Alpha is Not a Search Engine 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:09.040 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:17.880 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everybody, 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:21.760 and welcome to tech Stuff Live from Studio fifty seven. 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:25.480 My name is Chris Peltim, an editor here at how 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:27.600 stuff works dot com, and sitting next to me as 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:32.720 usual smirking at my goofy intro as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Huzzah. 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.159 So today we're going to talk about a subject that 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.000 I know a lot more about than I normally do 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.520 on these things. Well from Alpha right, which is not 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.159 a surge engine, not in the least. No, it is 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:55.560 a computational engine, Yes it is, indeed. So um, this 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.320 was one of those things that's interesting. You know, we 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:03.280 always hear about the killer uh apps, or the killer websites, 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.399 or the killer gadgets that are designed to knock off 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.920 whatever the most popular version of you know, that thing, 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:12.759 whatever that is. You know, when when a new one 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.440 comes out, it's the killer version. So like the HTCG 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.160 one was the iPhone killer, and then the Palm Prex 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:20.440 was the iPhone killer. iPhone, by the way, still doing 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.520 really well. Um, I hadn't. I hadn't heard anything about that. Right. Well, 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.360 Wolf from Alpha was supposed to be the Google Killer 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.520 according to some, just like Cool was supposed to be 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:32.680 the Google Killer according to something. But the thing is, 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:36.600 that's not what Wolf from Alpha is about. And if 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:38.600 you get away from that, if you can clear your 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:41.760 mind of the fact that this is uh you know 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.479 that you put in a query in a little box 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.320 and you hit a button. As that's the only similarity 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:49.920 to the search engine really, I mean, it's it's not 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:54.280 designed to pull up links to um two various other sites. 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.880 Well it does search, it does, but it's searching data. 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.800 It's not searching. It's not giving you links to other 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.800 websites exactly. UM. The reason I the reason I do 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.160 know more about this than normal is instead of doing 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:09.400 an hour or two of research for the podcast, I 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:13.160 actually wrote an article on that for the website. UM. 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.399 And one of the cool things about it is, other 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:18.800 than the you know five and thirty three articles that 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.720 I saw that had Google Killer in it somewhere, UM, 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:24.520 I think of it as sort of a difference between 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:31.560 uh Wikipedia and Britannica because the because Wikipedia allows you know, 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.600 anyone to write or edit an article. H well, you know, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.920 in general anyway, and Britannica, at least up until recently, 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.440 was a closed system. Everything in it was prepared by 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:47.760 the people at Britannica exactly. So the difference here is 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.440 that while Google is allowing you to search the web 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.600 and anything and everything on the web that it can 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:58.000 get its little spiders on anyway, um well from Alpha, 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.480 all the information provide it on that engine is actually 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.360 provided by Wolf from Research itself. So it is being 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:10.200 vetted by experts who are putting it together. It's not 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.160 just not just you know, it's not just looking for 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.120 the top result and pulling the numbers from whatever that 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.440 result is and assuming that because of the top result 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.240 it has to be true. It's actually being looked at 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:25.440 by a human being and and uh and validated yep. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:27.679 And that that's causing a lot of frustration. I wrote 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:29.240 a couple of blog posts about it, and I got 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.200 some comments in which people were saying, you know, I 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.359 plugged some stuff into to Wolf from Alpha and I 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:36.880 I'm just not getting anything useful. Well, the thing is, 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.600 if you're looking for you know, Britney Spears pictures or 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.920 the latest flight to Newark or whatever. You're not going 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.040 to find it. That's not what it's for. Kind of 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.200 why I'm not using Wolf from Alpha that much because 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:51.800 you know, hit me baby one more time. Please don't 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:57.440 tempt me. Um nice, Uh No, it's it's it's there 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:01.320 for it's it's more of a research site, right, Um, 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.920 you know, talking about science or mathematics at least that's 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.360 what it's being used for now. Even even music. You 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.800 can find a lot of information on music there, but 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.880 not you know, popular music. We're talking like music theory. Sure, 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:16.760 let's let's talk a little bit about the kind of 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.400 queries you can put into Wolf from Alpha. That's sort 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.600 of clear this up a little bit. So for example, 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.640 let's say that you are interested in, um, what was 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:30.720 the average temperature in a certain city in a certain year. 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.880 So you could say, all right, well back in what 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:39.159 was the average temperature of I don't know, San Diego, California. 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:41.960 That might be a piece of data that Wolf from 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.520 Alpha could actually pull back and give you. Or you 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:46.680 could say, give me a range of averages over a 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.680 range of years, or you could perhaps even compare two 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:53.160 different cities together. Um, that's the kind of data that 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.039 Wolf from Alpha might be able to pull up that's 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.200 just one tiny example. Uh. Whereas if you were to 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:02.080 search it for Google, you might get a whether website. 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.560 As a as a recommendation, you might get one that's 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.560 maybe the San Diego Chamber of Commerce page, maybe an 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:12.520 almanac page. Uh. You wouldn't necessarily get the data itself. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.320 You would be getting links that could point you to 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:17.919 the data. Yeah, you go to Wolf from Alpha if 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.680 you're looking for the answer. If you were looking for 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.320 a page where you might find the answer, you would 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:28.120 look at a search engine like Google or Yahoo, Are Asked, 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.240 or Microsoft, Kumo or whatever it end up being called. 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.440 Since we're recording this before it actually launched, I had 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.840 to throw that joke in there anyway. UM so one 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:42.839 of my um one of my favorite queries to plug 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:44.880 in there, just because they've done a lot of playing 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:49.240 around with it. UM. I plugged in red Panda and 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:52.960 Giant Panda, and what Wolf from Alpha will return if 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.799 you pull plug that in? It actually compares, It builds 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.279 a table and shows you the differences in this easy 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.039 so you might see about how tall each of them gets, 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.279 and about how long each of them gets, and about 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.880 how heavy they are um and it actually will show 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:14.520 you a breakdown of their classification, which is which is 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.560 a pretty cool application. Sure, And just for fun, I 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.480 started throwing in other kinds of animals just to make 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.720 a really goofy look and graph. So I started throwing 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:26.760 in stuff like giant squid and you know, all sorts 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:28.560 of things that are way on the other side yet 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:33.200 exactly exactly. Um. So if you're if you're into visualization 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:37.360 of data, um, this was will really help you with 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.799 that because you can you can actually get a visual 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.719 picture of it that will actually put together for you 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:45.839 on the fly, which is very cool. Yeah, And you 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:48.600 can even do things like let's say you are considering 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.520 a new diet and you want to know the nutritional 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.920 information of various foods. You can even plug that stuff 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.240 into Wolf Malfa and find out more about it, right, 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.000 that's true. You can put in something like chocolate and 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.640 it will instantly bring back some information that. The funny 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.400 thing is it's going to make an assumption if you 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:09.680 say chocolate and plug it in there, and it's going 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.200 to say, we're assuming you mean milk chocolate. I'm guessing 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.360 I haven't actually tried that one, but it will bring 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.800 you back the average fat um, the calories, and all 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.120 the other nutritional information about that. Now you say, oh, 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.240 well I meant actually dark chocolate, you can go in 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.640 and clarify that search to bring you back more accurate information. 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.160 So it actually does. It makes an assumption based on 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.720 how popular you know it thinks it's going to be, 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:35.960 and if it's if you're looking for something more specific, 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.400 you can make adjustments. Right. And there are some queries 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.320 that may come back with essentially an error saying that 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.040 there's no information on that. And in some cases it's 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:51.200 really just that the search the search algorithm doesn't recognize 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.520 the way you've worded your query, and if you reword it, 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.000 you might be able to get that information. But in 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.400 other cases it's just simply a fact that they haven't 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:01.880 managed to get a round to entering that data in yet. 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.720 So um, you know, you can try a few different 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.640 ways and if nothing's working, that might be a sign 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.640 that they just that the database doesn't have that info 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.360 at the moment. Yeah, that's um, that's true. It does 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.560 require a little bit of uh, I would say practice. 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.760 You might need to to get used to the syntax. 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:26.840 Um they've actually built in some natural language processing based 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:31.640 on what they think you're going to ask it. For example, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.640 you know it has a lot in there about mathematics. 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:39.520 If you you can actually use some mathematical shorthand to 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.280 generate a query and will from alpha and it will 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:47.400 bring back some results. Now, um, you know, if you said, 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.680 say a thousand pound feet to newton meters, it may 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.360 not get that. You might need to say, convert a 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.760 thousand pound feet to newt meters and it will go essentially. Oh, 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.120 now I see what you mean, kay, I can I 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.640 can convert that for you. Here's what it is one about. 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:07.000 If um, let's say that you gave it the dimensions 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.000 of a building, would it be able to give you 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.120 the volume? Um? You know what, I'm betting that it 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.080 probably could have. It's got quite a few algorithms in it. 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:16.959 But that's sort of the idea is that eventually you 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.360 would get to the point where if you had just 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.679 an interesting question, thinking like well, this building is so 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.240 tall and it's so wide and and so deep, I 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:29.160 guess you could say how how how much volume is that? 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:31.640 And it would be able to calculate it. Uh. I 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.000 can see this being a big help to people when 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.679 they're doing their math homework. Yeah. Actually, uh, it might 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.160 be a little too much in some regards, UM, because 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.840 you can plug in, um, say a calculus problem into 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:47.920 Wolf from Alpha, and it will give you a result. 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.000 And it also has a little link off to the 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.920 side that says show steps, and it will break it 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.320 down into each individual step that you need to go 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.400 through in the process of this complicated problem, and you 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.000 know how you get the result. Now, theoretically you could 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.240 go in and copy this all down, UM, but if 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.200 you do that and cheat on your homework, you're not 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.760 actually learning anything and you're going to fail a testing class. 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.400 Although I think that would have been very handy back 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.600 when I took Calculus, because um, I had I had 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.080 difficulties grasping certain concepts, and if I had had this 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.120 to show me each step, perhaps I would have been 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:27.080 able to follow the logic of each step a little better. UM. 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.240 It felt to me back when I was taking Calculus, 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.800 and granted this was as many moons ago, but when 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:34.560 I when I was taking it, it just felt like 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:36.959 there was no rhyme or reason to the rules that 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:40.160 I was applying, and so perhaps using something like this 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.000 would have kind of made me understand and therefore do 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.080 better on a test than I would have before. Now, granted, 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.360 that's only if I were actually using it to see 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:51.680 how how it got from one step to the next, 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:53.599 as opposed to just copying it down so that I 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:55.560 could do my homework and record time and I can 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.960 go play Halo for another hour or so. Well, you know, 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.240 if you actually learned, earned what you were supposed to 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.280 be learning, and could actually go ahead and play Halo, 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:08.319 then you'd be killing two birds with ones. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Um. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.880 I don't wish to cast expersions upon my calculus teacher either, 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:13.679 but I don't think she listens, so it's all right. 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.760 I had similar problems grasping calculus, and um I probably 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.000 also would have welcomed the additional you know, taking you 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.520 step by step through it, because she really lost patience 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.680 with me. Now, the cool thing about Wolf from Alpha 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.840 is that's really going to make research a lot easier 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:37.120 for for certain, um certain applications, and I'm looking forward 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.160 to using it more in the future when the database 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.840 is a bit more robust, because there are certain things 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.400 that you know, facts and figures that I would love 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:49.240 to have access to and I can't always be certain 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:53.080 that I have the latest information. Sometimes I find information 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:54.760 that's a year or two old, and I don't really 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.720 want to depend on that because it could have changed dramatically. 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.319 For example, just throwing a random thing out there, and 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.240 I'm not saying that Wolf from alf actually has this. 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.880 In fact, I know for I know that my query 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.280 didn't work most recently. But let's say I wanted to 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.720 find out how many users MySpace has. UM. That would 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:13.720 be a useful thing, you know, just or being able 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:18.679 to compare various social networking sites across uh an array 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.640 of different criteria. It would be great to be able 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:23.640 to do that and just take a quick look and say, oh, 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:25.880 look at this. It's kind of surprising that such and 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.720 such social networking site has gained a lot of ground 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:33.359 over the big names over the last twelve months. UM. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.600 So I can see this being a very useful tool 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:37.840 for me in the future and for lots of other 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.400 people as well. Students, scholars, you know, more, other journalists, 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.520 and just if you just have one of those things 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.280 where you know, you just need to know the answer 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.920 to something like what's the population of Detroit compared to 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.199 the way it was ten years ago. I mean, that's 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:54.600 kind of it's kind of cool to be able to 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.560 get all that at your fingertips instantly. Yep. And it 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.320 it does calculate a lot of that stuff UM on 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.200 the fly, things like UM currency conversions. You can find 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.040 out what temperature it is at any place in the world. 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:12.120 You know. It actually gets information from local weather stations. UM. 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:15.120 So you can look up, say Detroit, and find out 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.520 what temperature it is. You can find out when the 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:19.959 sun's gonna set. UH. You'll even you can even find 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.560 out when the next lunar eclipse is going to be UM. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.280 And it tells you that in real time. You can 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:28.319 get stock quotes just by by putting that in. UH. 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:30.920 If you know stock symbol or a company name, it 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:33.960 will give you company information. If you put any date in, 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.520 it will give you anything significant about that date, including 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.000 any holidays that follow on that date, uh, any historical 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:44.000 events that happened on that date. UM. So you can 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.040 put your birth date in and it will tell you 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:48.559 what day of the week it was. I'll tell you 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.120 what the what what, what phase the moon was in 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.360 on that day. UM. It's kind of an interesting thing 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.120 that you can and you can even see like how 0:13:57.160 --> 0:13:59.400 how far into the year that date was, how far 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.079 into the month that date was, in case you weren't 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:07.079 able to work it out yourself. But uh, it's you know, right, 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:09.480 I guess like, oh gosh, you're right June twenty six, 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.640 that is twenty six days into June. Um, no, no, 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:14.960 it's but it's really a neat, neat tool that you 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:17.600 can you know, it's one of those things where you 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.360 plug any date and so of course everyone just immediately 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:22.960 because puts their birthday in to see what happened. By 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.840 the way, nothing significant other than my birth happened on 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.480 my birthday, according to Wolf from Alpha. Well you know 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:33.640 we had to reserve it, right, just thank you. I 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:37.680 would hate to be overshadowed by something so um. Yeah, 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.120 actually this uh, this was all sort of sprung on us, 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.280 which is very very surprising considering all the hype for 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.560 all the other tech things that go on, you know, 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.520 the lot of stuff we talk about too. Um but 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.680 it actually sort of goes back to a March fifth, 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.320 nine posts by Stephen Wolfram in the Wolf from blog. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.480 And uh, you know he said Wolf from Alpha is 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:03.240 cuming and narrowly, you know, we might not be so interested. 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:07.240 But you know, Stephen Wolfram is a former child prodigy. 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.320 He actually got his doctorate and when he was twenty 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.440 years old from cal Tech, which means no one from M. I. T. 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:19.480 Will be using Wolf from Alpha um it now. He 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.080 he wrote his first scientific paper at fifteen and got 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.440 his PhD in theoretical physics when he was twenty UM 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.560 and then Wolf from Research, which is the company that 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.720 actually you know, he started and produces. Wolf from Alpha 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:35.640 created a piece of software that I'm sure many of 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.120 you have heard of, but like me, sort of only 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:43.040 vaguely are aware of, called Mathematica UM, which basically crunches 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:46.040 numbers in serious, serious ways. It's not the kind of 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:47.880 thing that you would buy for fun. It's, you know, 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.520 three piece of software for the home version. I can't 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:55.360 even imagine what the business version costs UM. But that's 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.880 actually what Wolf from Alpha is based on. It uses 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.440 the computational algorithms and mathematics to bring down, you know, 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.400 the data that you're looking for and crunch it together 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.600 to make results page. It has a lot to do 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:13.040 with the the way it looks too, because um um 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:18.320 mathematic it helps you visualize mathematical information. So, UM, you 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:20.400 know this, this works a lot different from the Google 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:25.000 algorithms that Google uses to search the web. Right. Google 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.560 algorithms are more about finding the links that most people 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:34.240 are linking to, really and judging that as a a 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.080 symbol of quality. So if a lot of people are 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:41.040 linking to a particular page, that page and Google's eyes, 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:43.920 is more important than other pages that contain the same 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.320 keywords and therefore goes higher up on the list. Um. 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:51.680 That's a very that's a huge oversimplification of the Google 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:53.600 algorithm because there's a lot more to it than that. 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.080 But that's the basic idea. Uh. But yeah, like we said, 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.000 since the Wolf from Alpha is not a search engine, 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.160 it doesn't really apply and it's not the kind of 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:07.040 place that you will find advertising yet. Um, Google has 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:11.960 um pulled down one billion dollars in revenue, that is 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.360 advertising revenue. UM. As of right now, Wolf from Alpha 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.000 does not have any advertising on it, although there is 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:22.960 some code UM that's commented out apparently that has room 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:27.640 for possible advertising. UM. So there that may be a 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:29.479 clue as to what they're going to do with it 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:34.920 eventually once it gets up and running and more robust. UM. 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.800 You want to have some technical stuff about Wolf hit 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.240 me because it's Wow, you're just so generous with the 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.639 offers to hit you today. Yeah, well, I'm I'm feeling 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.800 like a target anyway, so just go for it. UM. 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.359 Wolf from Alpha runs on a system uses the world 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:56.960 sixty six fastest supercomputer, a system of custom Dell hardware 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.760 UM built by our systems UM. It's called are Small 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.160 UM and it it can do thirty nine point six 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.720 trillion mathematical operations per second. It's got a four thousand, 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:11.600 six hundred eight processor corps UM with five seventy six 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:16.359 squad core harpertown Zon machines. It's got sixty five thousand, 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:20.360 five thirty six gigabytes of memory, which is just slightly 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.399 faster than my laptop computer at my desk here how 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:27.520 stuff works dot com they actually have five co location facilities, 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:32.480 so it's technically two supercomputers. And uh, you know that's 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.639 that's a whole lot of processing power. But they're probably 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:37.159 gonna need it if they're going to keep adding information 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:42.520 to this uh to this computational um. Yes, computational engines. 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:46.159 I mean, uh, well, and and before we before we 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:48.679 go too far, I also wanted to mention that, um, 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.160 the builders, the developers of Wolf from Alpha have a 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:57.399 sense of humor. Ah, yes, so you mean not. You 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.520 can't just plug in a mathematical con version or you know, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:06.400 some kind of um musical note series and find out 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:10.520 the distances between the notes. Can do that, but you 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.880 can do more than that. There are there are certain 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.600 easter eggs that are in Wolf from Alpha, and some 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.639 of them have been publicized, and I'm sure there are 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:19.840 many others that we haven't even thought of yet that 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:22.600 someone's eventually gonna uncover When they just say, I'm going 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:24.119 to be a smart ale, I can put this in 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:26.200 and then they're cann't find out there's actually an answer. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.760 For example, you can open up Wolf from the Alpha 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.840 and type in why did the chicken cross the road? 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:35.720 The answer you will get is to get to the 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.760 other side. So it's not that it doesn't tell you 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:40.639 that there's no answer. It gives you the answer to 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:42.959 the joke. And it's of course, just like everything else 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.439 in Wolf from Alpha. It's just presented there in black 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:49.040 and white, you know, matter of fact. So that kind 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.160 of makes it even more funny to me, because there's 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.119 no indication that this is a joke, but there are 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.720 a lot of others that you can put in as well. Yep, 0:19:56.400 --> 0:20:01.119 I know that in one preview blog I read when 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.840 I was trying to collect information from my article. Um, 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:05.560 you know, they're all kinds of well this is really 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.119 cool or I don't know if it'll be able to 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.520 knock off Google random comments like that. But somebody said, 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:13.840 I want I want to know what the air speed 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:16.160 is of an unladen swallow, and if it can tell 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:20.080 me that, I'm quitting Google forever and paraphrasing this. As 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.000 it turns out, you can plug that question and get 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.600 an answer. Yes, the answer. The answer is not do 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:29.680 you mean an African or a European swallow? It's more 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.520 complicated than that, but it is in fact a reference 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.760 to the fantastic film Money, Python and the Holy Grail. 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.840 And it does make an assumption. It says, assuming you 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:43.240 mean right, exactly which is right? And then there's um, 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.399 there are other ones as well. I'm sure. Well, like 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:49.760 I said, we'll find more. Um, we'll see what exactly 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.320 what is what is the answer to life, the universe 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:57.320 and everything? Forty two? So they obviously some Douglas Adams 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.280 fans over in the Wolf from ALFA team as well. 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.959 So yeah, I mean it's it's great to know that 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.760 not only are are there these dedicated people trying to 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.160 put in this this very important information that will soon 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.199 be at our disposal at a moment's notice, they are 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.040 also putting in goofy answers for those of us who 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.600 are complete and utter dorks. Well, there are a lot 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.760 of people who, uh, who are taking shots at at 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:27.200 Wolf from Alpha because it isn't Google and also because 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:30.720 it doesn't have every answer to every problem ever invented. Um, 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:32.800 it's gonna take them a while. They're about two fifty 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.560 people working on the project right now, and you know, 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:37.439 there's a lot of info out there. They have to 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.040 break things down into little snippets. Um. Apparently there are 0:21:41.040 --> 0:21:43.760 more than ten trillion pieces of tagged information in the 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:48.160