Center for Teaching & Learning

What happens if you ask Google to compare the GDP of France and Germany, or ask it how many cows were in Vermont each of the last ten years? You may find a web page where someone has posted that information, or you may have to search for several sites and gather the information for yourself, or you may find some references to follow to do some research. Google is fantastic, wonderful, certainly but is not designed for those kinds of questions.

Enter Wolfram Alpha.
Wolfram|Alpha
Dr. Wolfram, of Mathematica and New Kind of Science fame, is launching a new type of web search engine that combines the symbolic representation and calculating capabilities of Mathematica with natural language processing. Or, to quote: "Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they’d quickly be able to handle all these kinds of things. And that one would be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer. But it didn’t work out that way. Computers have been able to do many remarkable and unexpected things. But not that. I’d always thought, though, that eventually it should be possible. And a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to try to do it."

Natural language processing is still in its infant stage and "for example we’re still very far away from having computers systematically understand large volumes of natural language text on the web." So, Alpha begins small with "trillions of pieces of curated data and millions of lines of algorithms."

Read more or watch for the launch later this month, here: http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Comments

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Posted by: yahiali | May 11, 2009 6:00 AM

How cool is technology, eh? I'm thrilled at the implications this may have when thinking about research tools online. Not sure I believe that it will be the Killer of Google though:

http://www.sagerock.com/blog/wolframalpha-not-google-killer/

Posted by: greg | May 12, 2009 3:10 PM

i am really impresed it.
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Posted by: mariadev71 | May 14, 2009 2:57 AM

It's a new search engine that is supposed to let you ask questions using normal human language instead of just key words. Here's a quote from one of the links below:

"The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out "on the fly", according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out."

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Well, i have never seen the search engine your talking about. I think it is better if i will check it out now. Thanks!

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I like how the technology combines symbolic representation and calculating capabilities of Mathematica with natural language processing this will simply things and make results more accurate.

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I see that WolframAlpha is more an alternative to default search engine. It related to more scientific approach in finding search results.

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I like this search engine. The only issue is that one day computers will take away all our jobs...

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Posted by: Neila | July 27, 2009 9:12 PM

I can recommend using Google earth live in the classroom. I.e. it's very useful when teaching in geographic classes. Another sweet thing we started to use is Google docs for student projects. It enables students to work from home on shared documents. Since the teachers also got access to those files, we can correct and review them live or in-classroom in a plenary assembly. Students love it and it makes life much easier for us teachers as well!

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Posted by: Jane | August 16, 2009 5:52 AM

This looks like a promising search engine.

Posted by: acai burn | August 28, 2009 4:08 PM

I agree Jane. I also use Google Earth in the classroom. I have my PC hooked up to a projector just for this purpose. It is much better than an old fashioned 2d wall map, I'll tell you that!

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Interesting info..would it be the next google?

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WolframAlpha is an excellent alternative

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Just been playing with WolfeamAlpha. Still in its early stages; but I like what I see.

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This does seem like it will take a long time to perfect. It's sort of like those guys who try to map every part of the human brain to try and download someones memories to a computer. There is so much data that it will take eons.

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Posted by: hanyu | November 19, 2009 11:43 PM

sometimes I think that we can be exploited to ,too much information.

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Actually I would welcome a Google competitor at this point. Especially if it brought new opportunities.

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That's why Google is the # 1 Search Engine today!

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If you put in a site url it will tell you the location - pretty clever.

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People behind Google are smart people that have genius idea and Google does update every year so maybe they will find time to take everything in the next level.

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Google has since started integrating mathematical equations into the mix.

If someone else beats them to the punch, they will catch up fast, and surpass the new company in every way imaginable. Working in SEO and search engine marketing, we see a lot of new features always rolling out by the Google engineers/developers. It would be nice if more followed the path of Wolfram by coming up with brand new ideas.

Just as Google proved in the past, anyone can come out of nowhere, make a new system, and dominate the market.

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