Parlour trick or future glimpse

Frank Rapport / May 16th, 2009 / 9 Comments » Posted in Academic research / Tag:  /
There is an hour or so of fun to be had following this story around, it’s new and trendy:


http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples
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9 Comments »

 
  • mike says:
    May 18, 2009 at 3:29 pm
    fascinating… besides playing with the examples and watching the introductory video, I tried my own set of queries and wow!

    From the blog, I found this by Stephen Wolfram interesting:

    For one of the crucial features of Wolfram|Alpha is its ability to take free-form linguistic input, and to map it onto its precise symbolic representations of computations.

    Yet if these computations could be of any form whatsoever, it would be very difficult to recognize the linguistic inputs that represent them.

    But from NKS we know that computations fall into two classes: computationally reducible and computationally irreducible.

    NKS shows that in the abstract space of all possible computations the computationally irreducible are much the most common.

    But here is the crucial point: because those computations are not part of what we have historically studied or discussed, no systematic tradition of human language exists to describe them.

    So when we use natural human language as input to Wolfram|Alpha, we are inevitably going to be describing that thin set of computations that have long linguistic traditions, and are computationally reducible.

    Those computations cover the traditional sciences. But in a sense it is the very ubiquity of computational irreducibility that forces there to be only small islands of computational reducibility—which can readily be identified even from quite vague linguistic input.


    So, it can’t show me a chart through a black hole? The formula for arriving at the grassy knoll on November 22nd, 1963? Well, at least they are working on it… for now I will have to be satisfied with the formula for the event horizon radius, and did you know that C.S. Lewis died the same day?

    Bucky should have lived to see this. and, no doubt, Leibniz is dancing on the clouds.

    the real question is whether this is livingry or weaponry…
    Reply
    • eldon says:
      May 18, 2009 at 7:48 pm
      i waited a long time to even connect to this site, then checked out the blog too – it seemed to be mainly self advertising.
      i admit i did not have time to check out some of the sub-categories – and in another forum it was announced with the proviso that it could get slow due to its very popularity…

      …my response to your quote above, mike, was “huh?”
      i read it three times, and i still do not understand what is meant by ‘computationally reducible’ wrt natural human language. i’m guesing that i am missing something, and that might be provided by my taking a further look at the site?

      [PS frank, P says we do not have the baroque cycle in the library even though neil stephenson figures on a few spines]
      Reply
      • mike says:
        May 19, 2009 at 10:06 am
        I think it’s a concept expounded up in his book “A New Kind of Science” (NKS).

        However, mapping is not as trivial as he propounds… I had no trouble at all coming up with this lovely response from the system:

        Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.
         
        Reply
  • Frank Rapport says:
    May 18, 2009 at 5:16 pm
    Trim tabs and sinophile have now crept into my day, the blog is affecting my life
    directly and making me think about things. Did I ever mention Neal Stephenson’s
    “Baroque Cycle”? In paperback it is ten books and in the one I read it was 3 books.
    It’s had the same effect on everyone I’ve persuaded to read it.
    Reply
    • mike says:
      May 18, 2009 at 10:27 pm
      The Baroque Cycle trilogy (I also read it in hardback) was one of my favorite reads in a long time. From start to finish, I was completely at Stephenson’s mercy.
      Reply
  • hoon says:
    May 18, 2009 at 11:21 pm
    Mike are you cloakin’ as admin, agin?
    Reply
    • hoon says:
      May 18, 2009 at 11:47 pm
      Damn thingy’s gone viral.

      I plugged in PENTATONIC. Came up with a unconventional example. Messed around with its interface for music theory. Since there are good interactive chord and scale builders on the web, WA won’t soon take up that niche.

      Yet there is a tremendous potential inherent in crunching numbers for the purpose of figuring out novel musical temperments, because the ratios tend to sometimes break down when pegged to actual ‘root’ frequencies.

      What was most interesting after I realized WA wasn’t able to give me a full gallery of scales related to the one I searched on, was that it generated 4 related scales. However, I couldn’t get at a Toureg or Berber scale.

      Reply
    • mike says:
      May 19, 2009 at 10:00 am
      um, yeah – forgot who I was logged in as… fixed now, though.
      Reply
 

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