Wolfram Alpha – a computational knowledge engine

May 17, 2009 by The Thirdsector Team · Comment
Filed under: Conversation, New Web Creations, Search engines, Web services 

wolframLogoPicWolfram Alpha is a search engine with a difference. The beginning of a journey towards the creation of a search tool that will provide definitive answers to factual queries. Producing clear, accurate data for researchers at all levels and competencies.

As of now, Wolfram|Alpha contains 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains.

You can see a full explanation of the Wolfram goals on their About Us pages – the project is built on the twenty years of research in the field by Wolfram Research.

Try the site with a couple of simple examples to see it in action and to appreciate the potential for reliable fact based research.

Add your date of birth to the engine. How many days have you been alive? When did the sun set on that day? How is your birth date expressed by the various calendars around the world?

Add two companies to the engine. Microsoft and Apple for example. Get a computed comparison which expresses their company size, profit to earnings ratio, number of employees and similar data.

wolframdataPic

Image: Section of sample search results from Wolfram Alpha

You can drill down into the data for even more detail, or save your search in pdf format. There are some bandwidth restrictions at the moment whilst the service is in alpha.

In search engine terms ‘watch this space’ is an understatement.

You can visit the Third Sector Web home page here.

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