Who’s Wolfram Alpha; what’s Wolfram Alpha? No, its not a cyborg and its not a WWII code used by the Nazis. Wolfram Alpha is probably something bigger. It’s going to be a “computational knowledge engine” for the web. It’s set for a debut in May and pundits have already started speaking of it as the “Google Killer”. Though ground realities may be different and the concept might just fizzle out, anyone remember Cuil?
Wolfram Alpha is essentially an idea whose time had come a long time ago. The idea is simple. You type a question, you get an answer. You don’t get a list of sites to check. The difficulty was in moving from a search engine to a computational engine. A vast electronic brain that carries with it all the sum of human knowledge and is ever hungry for more. So basically, a question like “Who won the battle of Little Big Horn” won’t get you a few thousand hits as with all search engines, you get one correct answer.
The man behind the idea is Stephen Wolfram who has an interesting track record of scientific achievements. His website Wolfram’s Math World is the definitive online source on all things related to Math.
