Wolfram Alpha
People who like to tinker in the garage or around the house invariably come across the need to convert one unit of measure to another. Ounces to quarts, quarts to gallons, foot pounds to newton meters, inches to millimeters, the list can go on and on.
Theres a very handy site that makes doing these types of conversions (and much much more) a painless endeavor. The examples just given are very simple. This site can calculate much more complex problems, The site is called Wolfram Alpha. Below are the goals of Wolfram Aplaha as posted on their site:
Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.
Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity.
Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious, long-term intellectual endeavor that we intend will deliver increasing capabilities over the years and decades to come. With a world-class team and participation from top outside experts in countless fields, our goal is to create something that will stand as a major milestone of 21st century intellectual achievement.
Don’t let their mission statement scare you away. The site is actually very easy to use. When you type in the words “1 foot” and hit enter you can watch as Wolfram Alpha converts your input into everything basic from interpretations to applications that perhaps you did not consider, like electromagnetic radiation wavelength.
This is a very handy tool for the mechanical types. We thought we’d share it with you. It is very worth of a bookmark.
