WolframAlpha: computational knowledge engine launched

A friend sent me this information the other day. It was news to me and I wonder what the implications may be for the spiritual life….  I checked the site’s blog and someone had put the word “dumb” in the search engine. It is olde English and its first recorded use was in 1323 (686 years ago). I looked up the word “nun” and it is Olde English and Classical Latin and was first used in 1275, i.e., 734 years ago. It predates “dumb”; this is a good thing! A treat for trivia aficionados … but I wonder what else it can do! R

“Many of you may have heard about a new ‘computational knowledge engine’ called WolframAlpha. It’s been advertised for a while and finally went live on the internet earlier this week. Rather than a standard search engine such as Google, it provides computations, comparisons, etc. on searches. It will be interesting to see if it’s successful. Below is a link to the site and the second link is a brief introduction to some of WolframAlpha’s features.” DML

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

 http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html