Using Wolfram Alpha

Inspired by one of the big data video's in the first week of our #LAK12 mooc, I decided to look at Wolfram Alpha again. Since I used my iPad to view the video, I used the tablet to visit the website. It adviced me to install the app, which is not for free. I decided to do so and started playing around. The presenter argued that Wolfram only uses validated cured data and that harvesting the web is not a good idea. I only agree if you do not ask any question to Wolfram Alpha that any child wouldn't know. For instance, they have a database for composers. JS Bach is in it, but Louis Couperin is not. Why? It knows about food, but it only knows one type of cheese, probably the US type. In opinion this is typical behavior of mathematicians: reduce reality to something you can compute - then take the answer for more true than the real thing. It is a nice tool for engineers, but "star trek" is still very far away. Let's stick to Wikipedia for a while!