“Cambridge University Library holds the largest and most important collection of the scientific works of Isaac Newton (1642-1727). We present here an initial selection of Newton’s manuscripts, concentrating on his mathematical work in the 1660s. Over the next few months we will be adding further works until the majority of our Newton Papers are available on this site.”

Well, there goes the weekend.

Dave Winer tested it on a Friday night. He ran some pretty interesting tests ranging from a vanity search to queries about movies. His queries were interesting but I don’t think they are inline with what Wolfram|Alpha was built for. His searches were just that, searches. They weren’t comparisons, questions, or equations of any kind. While Wolfram|Alpha is perfectly capable of letting you know what 2001: A Space Odyssey is – it does a much better job at telling you how much money the movie made at the box office, or the weather the night the movie was released.

Amber Simmons decided to try to make Wolfram|Alpha fail by asking it some questions that she’s wondered about since childhood. Her results surprised her.

When I initially tested Wolfram|Alpha it was immediately after I had watched the screencast explaining what Wolfram|Alpha was built to do. I did a comparison search on Viddler and Brightcove, a search to figure out my ideal body weight, and one to figure out how many calories I’ll burn running that 5K every other day.

The jury is still out on how I will use Wolfram|Alpha but I do not underestimate its abilities nor it’s teams abilities to adapt the tool for nearly anything you need. I’m very much looking forward to the future of this product.

Last night, somewhere between the hours of 2:00am and 4:00am (yes, I was awake, lying in bed, watching TV) I watched an incredibly good documentary on PBS called THE ATOM SMASHERS which is part of the Independent Lens series.

Being a fan of science, I found this documentary very educational and entertaining and it helped to catch me up-to-date on some of the developments of subatomic research. Many of us have seen the headlines about CERN – but there is more much to the story about the research they will be doing at CERN. People have been doing this research for years. Physicists at Fermilab, a government-funded particle accelerator, have been searching for the Higgs boson before the idea for CERN was conceived. THE ATTOM SMASHERS reflects on their journey, struggles, successes, and failures.

I found it riveting.

Source: PBS – Independent Lens – THE ATOM SMASHERS.
Photo credit: PBS.

If you have anything to spare, please consider donating it to help further research into curing diabetes for these children.  I’m more than sure he and Blake, the child who has inspired many to walk on Sunday, will be most appreciative of whatever you can give.

Source: Just Bete It for Blake – Diabetes Walk.