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"When Wolfram Alpha starts solving word problems..."

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/novak/cgi/physdemo.cgi

It's no Wolfram|Alpha, but it solves word problems fairly well.



Unfortunately both this and Alpha are trivial to confuse:

  What is the area of a circle with radius "2x"
yields 3.1415926535897931 * 2x^2 which is obviously incorrect. Alpha on the other hand doesn't give a result unless simplified to

  area of a circle with radius (2x)
where it gives a nonsensical display alongside the fact that 4pi is about 12.5664.


It may give you the wrong answer, but it makes it hard to be led astray:

  Evaluated area = pi * radius^2  giving AREA = 3.1415926535897931 * 2x^2
That description makes it obvious that a pair of parentheses are the only thing lacking.




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