Wolfram|Alpha, a computational knowledge search engine is launching on 15th May 2009.
So what is Wolfram|Alpha all about? We visited their blog to know more and following is what we found.
Wolfram|Alpha is not just a place to look up for facts. Its ability to do sophisticated computations, both pure computations involving numbers or formulas you enter, and computations applied automatically to data called up from its repositories is what sets it apart.
Computation matters coz it turns generic information into specific answers.
To give an amusing example, every school child has at one time or another written a report on the moon, and they probably included the wrong figure for how far the moon is from the earth. Why wrong? Because the distance from the earth to the moon is not constant: it changes by as much as a mile a minute. If you ask Wolfram|Alpha the distance to the moon, it tells you not only the conventionally quoted average distance, but also the actual distance right now, which can at times be well over ten thousand miles off the average. The actual distance is a figure that can be arrived at only by computation based on the moon’s known orbital parameters.
Each such computation requires a specific algorithm, and each of those algorithms has to be explicitly created. Of course many can be reused: units conversion or orbital mechanics, once implemented, can cover any unit or any planet. But nevertheless, enabling Wolfram|Alpha to do real, serious computations, covering a wide range of subject matters, required implementing literally tens of thousands of algorithms. Some are as simple as the quadratic formula; others are among the most sophisticated intellectual endeavors of our time.
The secret weapon that has allowed Wolfram|Alpha to assemble such a vast library of algorithms, in such a diverse range of fields, is Mathematica.
The algorithms built into Mathematica include some of the most sophisticated ever developed, and they cover not just mathematical computation, but the whole spectrum of logical, numerical, graphical, symbolic, and other computation.
So if you give Wolfram|Alpha a mathematical formula, a polynomial say, or something involving sines and cosines, it will give you back a number of useful results: a graph of the function, a list of its zeros, factored and expanded forms, and more.
It can also give you the derivative and integral of the function you entered. Now, computing the derivative of an arbitrary function is a straightforward process, but computing integrals can be among the most difficult problems in mathematics.
On top of this world-class algorithm, Wolfram|Alpha adds a very nice touch: a “Show steps” button that gives you a step-by-step explanation of how to arrive at the answer.
Wolfram|Alpha is bound to create a lot of buzz once its officially launched. So set your reminder for 18th May 2009 as Wolfram|Alpha is coming!!!
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