Wolfram Alpha goes live

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By Tim Danton

Posted on 17 May 2009 at 11:30

Wolfram Alpha, the much-heralded "computational knowledge engine" finally came out of private testing and into public view this weekend.

The key concept behind the site is that, unlike traditional search engines which merely point you to top-ranked sites, Wolfram Alpha will analyse your search words and then reveal all relevant information.

For instance, enter "High Wycombe" and you will be shown its population, where it sits on the UK map, its current weather and time, its elevation and nearby large towns. You can then download a PDF of these results.

There are a number of scientific uses for Wolfram Alpha too. Enter a name of a species of plant and you'll see not only its scientific name but also its relations and where it sits in the taxonomy of plants.

Alternatively, perhaps you're considering new baby names and want to see the latest trends for Timothy and Matthew. Type "Timothy, Matthew" into Wolfram Alpha and you'll see how many children have been given those names in 2007.

It also shows current estimates for just how many Timothy and Matthews are alive today, what their ages are, and more besides.

This test reveals one of the weaknesses of Wolfram Alpha, however, which is that a lot of its data is US-centric. For example, the data on names is based on a US census.

It's also important to note that Wolfram Alpha's strengths are based around information that can be expressed as clear data, which is why when we entered the phrase "mortality rate cuba" we were given a decisive figure (along with more data we hadn't asked for but which is potentially useful, such as Cuba's life expectancy) but when we entered "lasagne recipe" we were told "Wolfram Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input."

Though the site officially goes live tomorrow, it's already fully working. Just expect to see the error message "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" when the servers get overloaded with requests.