Comments on: Mr. Wolfram, will you please show your work? http://hackerjournalist.net/2009/05/09/mr-wolfram-will-you-please-show-your-work/ Like a photo journalist, but with a laptop Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:50:14 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By:   links for 2009-05-11 — contentious.com http://hackerjournalist.net/2009/05/09/mr-wolfram-will-you-please-show-your-work/comment-page-1/#comment-2080   links for 2009-05-11 — contentious.com Mon, 11 May 2009 14:00:33 +0000 http://hackerjournalist.net/?p=308#comment-2080 [...] Brian Boyer — Hacker Journalist : Mr. Wolfram, will you please show your work? "As far as I can tell from Wolfram’s recent presentation at Harvard, Alpha will tell you the source of the data, and will sometimes show you an example formula for a type of calculation (how to figure the volume of a cylinder, etc.), but it will not show you the actual calculations necessary to arrive at the answer. [...] [...] Brian Boyer — Hacker Journalist : Mr. Wolfram, will you please show your work? "As far as I can tell from Wolfram’s recent presentation at Harvard, Alpha will tell you the source of the data, and will sometimes show you an example formula for a type of calculation (how to figure the volume of a cylinder, etc.), but it will not show you the actual calculations necessary to arrive at the answer. [...]

]]> By: Ryan Mark http://hackerjournalist.net/2009/05/09/mr-wolfram-will-you-please-show-your-work/comment-page-1/#comment-1989 Ryan Mark Sat, 09 May 2009 21:30:26 +0000 http://hackerjournalist.net/?p=308#comment-1989 This the question of the century though - do you show your work and give away the recipe to your secret sauce that might make you 10 million dollars. It seems that wolfram will show you the data and equations that he used, just not how he used them. And assuming the meatbags entered the equations in correctly, the computer will never give you the wrong answer. Folks keep comparing this thing to google. That's not accurate. Wolfram alpha is a wikipedia-killer. It's an interactive encyclopedia. And as long as alpha always gives you correct answers, it becomes an authoritative source. This the question of the century though - do you show your work and give away the recipe to your secret sauce that might make you 10 million dollars. It seems that wolfram will show you the data and equations that he used, just not how he used them. And assuming the meatbags entered the equations in correctly, the computer will never give you the wrong answer.

Folks keep comparing this thing to google. That’s not accurate. Wolfram alpha is a wikipedia-killer. It’s an interactive encyclopedia. And as long as alpha always gives you correct answers, it becomes an authoritative source.

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