Investigating causal factors instantly is not only possible it’s GREAT!
Check this graph out… think there’s a relationship?
GM revenue vs US Carbon Emissions
cool. very cool.
The Power of Wolfram|Alpha – Instant Primary Research
June 9, 2009 by un1crom
Social Mode 
But can you coax alpha to do a regression on the data? I couldn’t find the right way to ask, but it does have a linear fit function…
soon… it’s coming.
Hmm…
carbon emissions US vs mcdonald’s revenue. Carbon has risen faster than McD revenue, but that’s because of the environmental feedback loop in which humans expel extra gas after eating McD sandwiches … 🙂
Let’s be very careful not to confuse correlation with causality! Unless I’m missing something, W|A is showing correlation, not causality.
That said, I suspect there’s causality in your graph.
Stever,
Agreed! I was merely pointing out the fact of how easy and useful as an investigative technique to input something into Wolfram Alpha and start teasing out relationships.
Very little in life is direct causation and correlations are pretty easy to come by.
what’s more fun to think about is it the rise in carbon emissions that indicates a cause for the GM revenue inclines. that is, as we burned more fuel in industry did we put all our money back into GM as a result of cheap fuel?
FUN!