guess who?
What made you think to ask about the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
So, if the answer to life, the universe, and everything minus everything equals 0, doesn’t that mean that life and the universe are nothing?
— Dave Bug 
Actually, it would mean that life and the universe are either both zero, or have different polarity, but the same absolute value.
Can it do conversions, like this?
http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&q=convert%3A6ft
— Michael
Oh wow. That is an entirely lovely way for a calculator to behave.
One other subtly elegant feature: have you noticed what happens when you write your numbers out as words?
Conversions? Just tried it. Yes, it can.
http://www.google.com/search?q=6+feet+to+meters
— Tim Binder
These particular searches are from a webmasterworld.com forum discussion on the new feature. I originally linked to the forum but then realized that it requires a login cookie that most people won’t have. You can find it in the revision history if you’re interested.
Also, I’m way behind on this. The feature announcement was #1 on Blogdex days ago. But I thought these particular searches were amusing. Someone in Google is a Douglas Adams fan…
— Mark
You missed my fave: http://www.google.com/search?q=phi
— hans
It also does Roman numerals.
http://www.google.com/search?q=1972+in+roman
— Mark
It can also do math entirely in Roman numerals:
http://www.google.com/search?q=MMIII+-+MCMLXXII
Interestingly enough, this query is case-sensitive. The equivalent query with lowercase numerals just returns documents.
http://www.google.com/search?q=mmiii+-+mcmlxxii
This is the only Google feature I’m aware of that is case-sensitive.
— Mark
Lovely! It also does nth roots, inclding negative numbers. It doesn’t seem to recognize ‘infinity’ though, and doesn’t let you divide by zero. The conversions calculation is very intuitive, giving you conversion factors when you query ‘gallons into tablespoons’ for example.
How about http://www.google.com/search?q=speed+of+light+in+furlongs+per+fortnight
I think, Dave, that Mark found out about the 42 thing from Google-Guy (1), which is where I (2) first saw a hint (3) that it existed.
1. http://www.markcarey.com/googleguy-says/
2. http://www.bbrown.info/blogs/bblog/2003_08_10_diamonds.cfm#106071485545271274
3. http://www.markcarey.com/googleguy-says/archives/discuss-more-geeky-google-calculator-stuff.html)
Ah, the future of weblogging: Google-whacking for transcendental functions.
You heard it here first, folks.
Another case-sensitive aspect of the calculator - Calories are different from calories (the capitalized form means kilocalories)
— Ben
Doesn’t seem to do calculus though; my initial guess was that they had Maple or Mathematica wired up behind the scenes.
— Tim Bray
>This is the only Google feature I’m aware of that is case-sensitive.
False. It also wants the Graviational constant in uppercaps:
http://www.google.com/search?q=G
I tried a number of other things and posted them here:
http://www.radicalbender.com/blog/archives/000649.php
It also does energy, power, force and pressure, but not voltage, torque, frequency and currency.
Jeez. I’m gonna be goofing off with this for hours. NERRRRRD!!! :)
— Ben Dyer
I’m surprised it doesn’t recognize feet and inches such as “5′9″ in centimeters” http://www.google.com/search?q=5%279%22+in+centimeters
They have to be spelled out: “5 feet 9 inches in centimeters” http://www.google.com/search?q=5+feet+9+inches+in+centimeters
— Eugene
Eugene: it’s probably because quote marks have a special meaning in google searches.
— kami
BASE CONVERSION! Wheeeee……..
http://www.google.com/search?q=42+in+binary
http://www.google.com/search?q=42+in+octal
http://www.google.com/search?q=42+in+hexadecimal
— kami
Dr. Bonzo, that is the calculation I try do in my head when I am really angry and need to distract myself by holding really large numbers in memory for calculations.
Now what am I going to do?
While it does area conversions as well, and has constants defined for ‘radius of earth’ and ‘diameter of earth’, it doesn’t seem to have one for ‘area of earth’ (or ’surface area’ either), so ‘area of earth in acres’ fails.
I could calculate the area from the diameter, but that seems needlessly roundabout.
Calculating is well and good, I’m waiting for the day I can program using google!
If they can compute math equations written in english then they should be able to do code written in english.. i can just imagine the new google language… which grandparents across the world will be able to use.
If not actual programs, then complex searches using variables, triggered by events and being able to actually do something also besides sending alerts
— KO
10 years down the road google will have so much computing power and there will be so much bandwidth available that personal computers will be redundant for normal people… they just fire up a link to the Google.. maybe this is what Sun meant by “the network is the computer”.. just changed slightly to “the internet is google”!
— KO
10 years down the road google will have so much computing power and there will be so much bandwidth available that personal computers will be redundant for normal people… they just fire up a link to the Google.. maybe this is what Sun meant by “the network is the computer”.. just changed slightly to “the internet is google”!
— KO
If one dozen = twelve (http://www.google.com/search?q=one+dozen+%3D) and one baker’s dozen = thirteen (http://www.google.com/search?q=one+baker%27s+dozen+%3D) then why does one dozen = one baker’s dozens? (http://www.google.com/search?q=one+dozen+in+baker%27s+dozens)
— Ray Waldin
Ray, try http://www.google.com/search?q=1+dozen+in+baker%27s+dozens
If you use a word for your number, the result of the conversion will be rounded.
— Simon
Hello - On this site, you can make calculations in the browser’s address bar:
http://urlcalc(about).x42.com/
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to know the correct definition of fluid ounces…
http://www.google.com/search?q=1+uk+pint+in+uk+fluid+oz
(It should be 20.)
— Ben Lings
Pity they don’t do currancy conversions either.
15 USD IN GBR or 30 Euros in pounds would be really useful.
voltage seems to work now…
— taestell
It seems they’ve fixed the imperial measures, it gives 20 imperial floz to the imperial pint
— Anonymous
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to understand a conversion between miles per gallon and rods per hogshead! :)
— Mike