Wolfram Alpha

WolframAlpha

Type of site	Answer engine
Owner	WolframAlpha LLC
Created by	Wolfram Research
URL	www.wolframalpha.com
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Optional
Launched	May 18, 2009 (2009-05-18) (official launch) May 15, 2009 (2009-05-15) (public launch)
Current status	Active
Written in	Wolfram Language

WolframAlpha (/ˈwʊlf.rəm-/ WUULf-rəm-) is an answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It answers factual queries by computing answers from externally sourced data.

WolframAlpha was released on May 18, 2009, and is based on Wolfram's earlier product Wolfram Mathematica, a technical computing platform. WolframAlpha gathers data from academic and commercial websites such as the CIA's The World Factbook, the United States Geological Survey, a Cornell University Library publication called All About Birds, Chambers Biographical Dictionary, Dow Jones, the Catalogue of Life, CrunchBase, Best Buy, and the FAA to answer queries. A Spanish language version was launched in 2022.

Technology

Overview

Users submit queries and computation requests via a text field. WolframAlpha then computes answers and relevant visualizations from a knowledge base of curated, structured data that come from other sites and books. It can respond to particularly phrased natural language fact-based questions. It displays its "Input interpretation" of such a question, using standardized phrases. It can also parse mathematical symbolism and respond with numerical and statistical results.

Development

WolframAlpha is written in the Wolfram Language, a general multi-paradigm programming language, and implemented in Mathematica. Wolfram language is proprietary and is not commonly used by developers.

Usage

WolframAlpha was used to power some searches in the Microsoft Bing and DuckDuckGo search engines but is no longer used to provide search results. For factual question answering, WolframAlpha was used by Apple's Siri and Amazon Alexa for math and science queries but is no longer operational within those services. WolframAlpha data types became available in July 2020 within Microsoft Excel, but the Microsoft-Wolfram partnership ended nearly two years later, in 2022, in favor of Microsoft Power Query data types. WolframAlpha functionality in Microsoft Excel ended in June 2023.

History

Launch preparations for WolframAlpha began on May 15, 2009, at 7 p.m. CDT and were broadcast live on Justin.tv. The plan was to publicly launch the service a few hours later. However, there were issues due to extreme load. The service officially launched on May 18, 2009, receiving mixed reviews. In 2009, WolframAlpha advocates pointed to its potential, some stating that how it determines results is more important than current usefulness. WolframAlpha was free at launch, but later Wolfram Research attempted to monetize the service by launching an iOS application with a cost of $50, while the website itself was free. That plan was abandoned after criticism.

On February 8, 2012, WolframAlpha Pro was released, offering users additional features for a monthly subscription fee.

Some high-school and college students use WolframAlpha to cheat on math homework, though Wolfram Research says the service helps students understand math with its problem-solving capabilities.

Copyright claims

InfoWorld published an article warning readers of the potential implications of giving an automated website proprietary rights to the data it generates. Free software advocate Richard Stallman also opposes recognizing the site as a copyright holder and suspects that Wolfram Research would not be able to make this case under existing copyright law.

See also

• Commonsense knowledge problem
• Strong AI
• Watson (computer)