Part of what makes Google so good is innovation. Their developers have one day out of five to work on their own Googly projects. Some things make it to production, other stuff can be found in development in at Google Labs. Sometimes things sneak into the main search without fanfare.

I happened to search for a serial number the other day that had a - in it, and discovered the Google Calculator. Stick sums in the search, then it’ll give you the answer. Click this and have a look, then come back : (17-5)/2^2

‘How neat’, I thought, followed up by ‘How incredibly useless’. How often are you in a position to access Google, but not to access a calculator??? Oh hmm, I suppose in an internet kiosk where you have access to a web browser only…

Anyway, turns out that the Google calculator isn’t just a simple mathematical tool, and that some seriously Deep Thought has gone into this service.