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New Company Seeks to Bring Semantic Context To Numbers
A new company, True#, is seeking to bring extensive semantic context to numbers to give them obvious meanings just as certain words have obvious meanings to most readers. "Most of us can probably recognize 3.14159 and the conceptual baggage it carries, but how many of us would recognize 58.44? (That's a mole of sodium chloride, in grams, for the curious.) And the response that would work for words — look it up — doesn't work so conveniently for numbers. Only one of the top-10 hits in Google refers to salt, and Bing fails entirely (though it does offer 'Women's Sexy Mini Skirts by VENUS'). Clearly, we haven't figured out how to make the Web work for numbers in the same way it does for words."
1337 returns EXACTLY what I expected.
...it returns "number of years it will take before True# turns a profit."
I'm seriously confused how many companies will jump at this -- and why someone like Google won't just do it for free? Couldn't you use Google Base for something like this?
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In all seriousness - this is not a rhetorical question. Usually I want this information in the inverse order, not just having a number with no context. What is the value in searching in that direction is their some widespread need I don't know about?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
So, a search doesn't bring up what one person would expect and that means the search engine failed? Sometimes the problem with logical fallacies is that they are so big as to defy categorization.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Only one of the top-10 hits in Google refers to salt, and Bing fails entirely (though it does offer "Women's Sexy Mini Skirts by VENUS").
Bing seems far superior to my hormon^W^Wme.
Actually, the accepted weight is 58.443 thats why Bing didn't show any NaCl results.
Search58.44 and chemistry and you'll find what you are looking for a lot faster.
This will be much more useful if it allows for approximate numbers and widely-used but inaccurate numbers. "1.4 math" should return 7/5, sqrt(2), and a bunch of other things. "3.142857 and math" should return "22/7" and "approximate value of pi" and probably a lot more.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'll bite.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=mole+of+sodium+chloride+in+grams - seems to work just fine searching for "mole of sodium chloride in grams" and also works without the "in grams".
http://www.bing.com/search?q=mole+of+sodium+chloride+in+grams - works for Bing too.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=sodium+chloride+molecular+weight - also works.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=58.44+science - "58.44 science" 6th one down. Better results from google.
Why would anyone just type in a number and expect it to know that you want the molecular weight of NaCl? If you add a little bit of context to your search, it magically works.
So, put in the (numerical) answer and it gives you the question?
Thank God Douglass Adams didn't know about this.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Why in the hell would I want to search for a number with no context? Who thinks that way? Everyone remembers the concept, not the number.
You say "3.14" and people know it as pi. But if you said "pi," people would say "3.14." This example is only interesting because it's widespread.
Nobody would start with "58.44" and say "Hmmm, what does that symbolize?" No. They need to know the molecular weight of sodium chloride, and so they'll search Google for "molecular weight sodium chloride" and turn up the number 58.44. We're not computers, we know semantic context, and need numbers. Not the other way around.
Though I guess this sort of thing might be useful for some sort of numerical AI, who has numbers but no semantic context. Time to don the tinfoil hats, fellows.
1. Eleventeen
2. 867-5309
3. 451
4. 1999
5. a gazillion
6. THIS MANY (holding up three fingers)
7. infinity minus one
8. approximately
9. 9/11 (may already be taken)
10. Top ten
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
When I searched "1234" on google and bing, the top results are about that Feist song. Thank goodness it doesn't mention anything about it being my root admin password and my luggage combination--hey! Where did my bag go? It was just here, and why is there a sudden spike in my internet tra#%^W&*s%!$AF{:
---[CONNECTION LOST]---
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I have had this need when reverse engineering and debugging algorithms in software. There are magic numbers in the formulas and I have no idea what they mean.
Additionally, if something like this was rolled into a more generalized search algorithm, it could be used the other way around. Google could know, for example, that a paper with the number 58.44 a lot of times is probably about NaCl even if it is not mentioned explicitly.
Maybe Bing learns from previous searches.
...by google!
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
I'm sure you've heard the one about the linguist who was walking across campus with his girlfriend when they saw six descriptivists beating up a prescriptivist. She turned to him in horror and asked, "Aren't you going to help?"
"No," he replied, "I think six is enough."