Re: Wolfram | Alpha: Acres per square mile? (oddities)
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg101224] Re: Wolfram | Alpha: Acres per square mile? (oddities)
- From: David Reiss <dbreiss at gmail.com>
- Date: Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:03:29 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <h1vm2n$a8q$1@smc.vnet.net> <h229a7$hsv$1@smc.vnet.net>
I'd add to all of this the observation that the Wolfram|Alpha parser is something that is evolving. I also would have expected it to return the result you were expecting. So, whenever one comes across something like this it is helpful to the W|A team to add a quick comment in the W|A comments field. --David On Jun 26, 6:52 am, "Hans Michel" <hmic... at cox.net> wrote: > Try > > "acre mile^2" > > This query returned the requisite 640 you are looking for. > > According to article about W|Ahttp://www.technologyreview.com/web/22834/ > Mr Weisstein put some work into the Unit part. > > Hans > > "AES" <sieg... at stanford.edu> wrote in message > > news:h1vm2n$a8q$1 at smc.vnet.net... > > > > > Just out of curiosity (and a current need for info) (and to start > > learning about W|A), typed: > > > Acres per square mile > > > into Wolfram | Alpha. Results came back (had to do a little hand editin= g > > of the following): > > > Assuming U.S. acres for "acres" > > Use > > international acres > > commercial acres > > Irish acres > > Hungarian acres > > instead > > > Input interpretation: > > > acres/mi^2 > > > Unit conversions: > > > 0.3861 acres per square kilometer > > > 6.323 square meters per acre > > > 0.1563 hectares per square kilometer > > > 0.4047 hectares per square mile > > > 0.003861 acres per hectare > > > Don't see "640" there anywhere! -- and something seriously wrong with > > that first unit conversion? (not to mention all the others) -- or at > > least the way it's phrased -- more like 250 acres per square kilometer? > > > Went to M7, tried > > > Needs["Units`"] > > Convert[Acre, Mile^2] > > > Mile^2/640 > > > Went to Units Tutorial: Seems odd to see "Centimeter", "Meter", > > "Micron", "Mile", and a bunch of arcane units listed there -- but NOT > > "Kilometer"??? ("Gram" and "Kilogram" are in there).