Melbourne-based, Sydney affiliated historian and philosopher of science, especially biology. Apple tragic. Pratchett fan. Curmudgeon. Punster. Fatso.
Subscribe
Subscribe in a reader (RSS, Atom, etc.)My publications
Admin
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License.
If we exhert a little effort and persuade five of those species to become extinct, then we could claim “how many species of swallow are native to Africa?” as a candidate for Ultimate Question (also as a Grand Unification: Python/Adams).
But there’s an answer, as I noted before. Alpha should know that…
we tried this in the lab yesterday, it does give you a very detailed answer for the European swallow.
Laden, or unladen?
I entered, “What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?”
The correct answer was given. I am now at peace.
Great minds think alike — the swallow speed was the 1st question I typed in!
Given that the engine has trouble parsing much simpler inputs I’ve tried, this is almost certainly a hard-coded answer, like 42. So double fail.
It didn’t know who did the twiddly bits along the coast of Norway. If they’re going to code in one Guide reference…
Question: what is the frame problem? And have you solved it?
Answer: Wolfram|Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input.
Yes indeed.
I’m kinda upset the Wolfram Alpha people hadn’t thought of The Last Question.
Entering “How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?” gives a “I dunno what to do with this” response.
You’re expected to teach it. If you don’t teach it, it won’t learn.