Wolfram Alpha: stupidly named but frighteningly powerful

The interwebs has been abuzz with the launch of Wolfram Alpha - a really smart online knowledge engine that is able to formulate answers to questions or return relevant factual data based on keywords. It might sound fluffy the way I’m describing it but it’s actually an insanely impressive yet frighteningly powerful development in the field of adaptive computation. This is one smart motherfucker that’s bound to get smarter as they continually tweak it.

If you’re geek enough, listen to the Stephen Wolfram interview on Twit where he explains just how powerful it is. It’s kinda hard to explain unless you try it - and for the most part, you probably won’t be that impressed until you imagine how much computational power goes into the process of searching, analyzing and processing a universe of data - all this, over the internet.

It won’t tell you the best places to eat in KL but it could give you the estimated population, current weather and humidity, current local time and approximate elevation all in a jiffy. Would’ve helped immensely during high school.

Examples of questions you can ask Wolfram Alpha:

• What notes make up the Db major seventh chord?
• How are you? What do you like?
• What’s the answer to life?
• How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?
• Are girls generally happier when they don’t wear panties?
• How many dead Dalmatians did it take to clothe Cruella De Ville?
• Batman vs Superman vs The Hulk - who wins?