The digital Nostradamus has arrived! My future has been predicted with cold, calculated mathematical certainty. I am going to die on July 1st 2060.
How exactly do I know this? Well, Wolfram Alpha is an online computational knowledge engine that aims to “make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone.” It is a search engine that can answer questions based on mathematical, statistical and other stored data.
For example, the average life expectancy for a 27 year old male who lives in the UK is 78.21yrs.
If you add that to my date of birth you get the date July 1st 2060 (which is a Thursday by the way.) The results page worryingly has a clock counting down the years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds to my impending doom.
Obviously this information is purely based on statistical analysis and my life expectancy will actually increase slightly as I get older due to the likelihood of me making it to my next birthday, or “survival probability” as Wolfram so coldly puts it.
Other trivia you can garner from the site includes how popular your name is; I have the 962nd most popular name in the US; there are over 80 unvigintillion different orders a pack of cards be in; you have a 1 in 108290 chance of getting 3 Queens and 2 Jacks when dealt 5 cards; if you roll 4 dice you are most likely to get a total of 14 and I have a less than 0.1% chance of getting 10 heads when I flip a coin ten times (but Wolfram doesn’t know I have a coin with heads on both sides!)
The stuff it can tell you is truly fascinating.
Jade May 28 2009 - 7:23 pm
I tried one of those websites that tells you when you’re going to die before when I was like 10 and it also had a clock. Frightening stuff
And according to that website, Mathematician Leslie Fox died on my birthday. Whoever that is…:D
Hanna May 29 2009 - 4:56 pm
Finally!
I was waiting for a post for ages!
I missed you, Barry!
Love,
Hanna
Aoife May 31 2009 - 5:50 pm
Amazeful. I was already impressed by looking up my birthday & home town…
This was also amazing [yes, I have no imagination when it comes to statistics];
http://www83.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=aoife
Rhiannon Jun 7 2009 - 8:59 pm
I can’t find my name on there all I got was the Fleetwood Mac song! Grrr stupid American site, it had male Elizabeths for goodness sake! Oh well that’s what you get for having an unusual-ish name of Welsh origin!
Elizabeth Jun 7 2009 - 9:02 pm
That was really interesting. Sort of suits my slightly geeky side. It does not have my home town though- damn them for not having detailed knowledge of London!
Rhiannon Jun 9 2009 - 6:40 pm
I fail! It is there! It’s the 944th most popular female name in the US in 2007! Odd that’s more popular than Barry (checked the numbers out to make sure I’m right!).
Elizabeth Jun 11 2009 - 10:38 am
Now we need to know when Stuart will die! I have the 9th most popular baby name in the US by the way
Rosie Jan 23 2011 - 3:41 pm
I can’t even find where it says how popular my name is.