In 2002, Stephen Wolfram published a book called 'A New Kind of Science,' in which he explains his belief that simple rules can explain complex problems. Alpha is designed for you to ask it a question and get a factually correct answer, along with a visual interpretation of that answer.

In fact, you can ask the computational knowledge engine to derive a calculus problem and not only will it tell you the answer, it will also show you what steps are required to solve it.īut remember, Wolfram|Alpha isn't a search engine, which means that if you want to find pictures of celebrities, the cheapest price on a flight to London or articles written about a specific topic, you need to use a search engine. Scientific and mathematical problems are easy for Alpha to handle. Again, if you ask Alpha for the names of different animals, you'll get a table comparing them, and you'll even see how they're related taxonomically. If you type in the name of an animal, you'll get the average size, alternate names, scientific name and even a breakdown of its taxonomy. Input several city names and you'll get a table that enables you to compare them. Results can be quite simple: Enter the name of a city, and you'll get the time of day and weather information, as well as population and elevation above sea level.

Alpha then looks searches for corresponding data in its databases. To get that information, a person types a query into the search box on the Wolfram|Alpha home page and presses the equals sign to the right - the equals sign is a clue that there's math going on in the background. Wolfram Research employees vet all information to ensure its accuracy before it's added to the Wolfram|Alpha databases. According to the company, there were more than 10 trillion individual chunks of data on the Alpha servers at the time of the site's launch. Instead, it relies on licensed databases and content entered, tagged and cataloged by Wolfram Research employees.

Wolfram|Alpha doesn't scan the Web for material.

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