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As we bid adieu to 2010, we want say thank you to all of our loyal blog readers and commenters. Today we’re taking a look back at some of 2010’s most popular Wolfram|Alpha Blog posts. 2010 was a year full of product releases, such as Wolfram|Alpha Widgets and new data for everything from movies to taxes.
These selections are only highlights of the topics we’ve covered in 2010. If you’re feeling really nostalgic, or if you’re new to the Wolfram|Alpha Blog, we invite you to read more in the archives.
Just in time to tackle a common New Year’s resolution, we released “New Physical Activity Data in Wolfram|Alpha”.
After reading “Computing Valentine’s Day with Wolfram|Alpha”, there was little doubt that we speak math, the universal language of love.
Ever wonder which country consumes the most coffee or sugar? In March, we introduced new data that answers these questions in the post “Food for Thought: Consumption Patterns from Around the World”.
In April we were excited to finally be able to share “Stephen Wolfram’s TED Talk: Computation Is Destined to Be the Defining Idea of Our Future”. The inspirational video quickly became a web favorite.
May:
Where did the time go? In May we celebrated Wolfram|Alpha’s first birthday with the post “Wolfram|Alpha: The First Year”.
June:
Just in time for family reunion season, we published “My Cousin’s Cousin’s Niece’s Grandfather Said to Just Ask Wolfram|Alpha”, to help you identify all of those branches on the family tree.
July:
In July we shared “Ask Wolfram|Alpha about Medical Drug Treatments” to introduce a new functionality in Wolfram|Alpha that allows you to compare how your medical conditions and treatment plans compare to those of other patients.
Kids say the darnedest things. In the post “10 Fun Questions Kids Can Answer with Wolfram|Alpha”, we took a look at how Wolfram|Alpha can help you and your little one answer common curiosities. More »
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Wolfram|Alpha couldn’t do your taxes for you this year, but we did just wrap up a quick project to add some interesting historical tax statistics. Now that all of our U.S. users have filed their taxes (we hope), they can explore IRS data about individual income taxes, broken down by adjusted gross income (AGI), from 1996 to 2007—the latest year for which the IRS has released statistics broken down by AGI. Users can also investigate less-detailed data about sources of individual taxable income from 1916 to 2007.
The basic input for this new dataset is simply an income, such as “AGI $35000”—type it in, and Wolfram|Alpha matches that input to a specific AGI bracket (in this case, $30,000–$40,000) and calculates a broad range of statistics.
First, the average effective federal tax rate, which is calculated by dividing total tax receipts in this bracket by total adjusted gross income:
Next, the average tax paid in the input’s bracket—which in this case dropped by nearly 50% over the decade covered by this dataset. You’ll also note that nearly a quarter of all tax returns in this AGI bracket had no tax due:
Third, average exemptions and deductions for all taxpayers in the input’s bracket. In this case, those increased by nearly $4,000 over this period, and in 2007 accounted for an average of 48% of AGI:
For some particularly interesting numbers, try asking about high income brackets (average tax on AGI $400k, average exemptions and deductions on $5 million) and very low brackets (average tax on AGI $500). More »