What is Wolfram Alpha?

Wolfram Alpha - A Knowledge Engine

There is a new search engine in town, a computational knowledge engine, as its creators call it. Wolfram|Alpha has really changed the concept as we know it. Combining the power of the web, many specialized databases, and a computation engine, it's been 20 years in the making and is finally ready for the masses. I'm calling it the world's largest real-time encyclopedia.

Think about this... would you rather get answers based on facts, or on how clever a certain website has been for search engine optimization? Stephen Wolfram, creator of Wolfram|Alpha, and a select team of experts have managed to capture over 10 trillion of pieces of data, 50,000 types of algorithms and models, and over 1000 domains to come up with a system capable of answering questions, instead of just finding web pages that match a given keyword.

With your basic search engine, you enter a search term, and it will then point you to other sites that are relevant. You can choose to narrow it down from there. But with Wolfram|Alpha, you get information about the term, questions answered in real time, as well as other links.

What Can Wolfram|Alpha Do?

So what exactly can this new search tool do? In a nutshell, it will answer a question or perform a calculation based on facts. Subjects such as food and nutrition, life sciences, chemistry, organizations, engineering, and money and finance are all included in the data base.

For example, I entered "Thailand" and got everything I ever wanted to know about it and more, including map location, topographical data, demographics, cultural properties and largest cities. I also got links to more data. By comparison, Google's top results are mostly about tourism and travel. Enter a specific date and it will tell you how long ago it was, notable events, what famous people were born on it and even what phase the moon is in. I tested it for Groundhog's Day (February 2) and found that it was also Change Your Windshield Wiper Day. I'm surprised Hallmark hasn't jumped all over that one yet...

Next, I entered the word "pink." The color came up, along with a swatch and what colors it is made from. Click on "person" and you get the singer Alecia Beth Moore, aka Pink. I also found it is the name of a publishing company. I then gave it a real challenge with the word "Spam." Wolfram|Alpha assumes it is a food and proceeded to give me calorie count and other nutritional facts. Thank goodness it didn't give me the exact ingredients. There was also an option to use it as a word and I received the information, "a canned meat made largely from pork." Interestingly, it didn't suggest the alternative cyberslang definition referring to unsolicited commercial email, unless I entered the word "spam" in lowercase.

What Wolfram|Alpha Isn't So Good For

Remember that this is a tool that eats facts and spits out information. So Wolfram|Alpha is a bit like a nerd at a cocktail party. He can tell you that it would take 4.39 light years to reach Alpha Centauri (some 25.81 trillion miles away) if you were in a ship travelling at the speed of light. But his scientific calculator won't help him figure out what songs are on the Billboard Top 40.

Ask about math, science and other specific things that can be calculated from known facts, and you'll get very interesting results. Here are a few examples:

Enter a formula like "x^2 sin(x)"
How old is Steve Jobs?	54 years, 3 months and 22 days
Current time in London
Weather in Boston June 15 1999

But enter something obscure and it will tell you it doesn't know what to do with your input. It won't find a song that you want by using part of the lyrics, or tell you who sang "Blinded By The Light." It knows that "Kenny Rankin" is a person's name, but not that he was a popular musician who died recently.

When the team first began the project, they based it on reference books and libraries. However, they plan on expanding their scientific, technical and other quantitative information. Visit the Wolfram|Alpha forum to find out what they are up to, make suggestions and participate. If you are an expert on any subject, you might find yourself as part of the team.

The goal is to make this knowledge complete, so that "it is possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything." That's a ton of stuff and so ambitious that it will take decades to come to accomplish. Wolfram says he hasn't decided how he will make money from the Wolfram|Alpha project. But I can easily see Google, Yahoo or Microsoft buying it and making it a valuable addition to their search results. But for now, enjoy the service as it evolves and get involved if you can make it better.

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