Coming Soon: "A Platonic Search Engine" That Promises to "Unearth Eternal Truths"

Ronald Bailey | April 6, 2009

oracle at delphi Stephen Wolfram, the guy who argues that the universe is essentially a gigantic cellular automaton (for details see his magnum opus, A New Kind of Science), will launch Wolfram|Alpha, which he calls a "computational knowledge engine". As Wolfram explains in an interview with mathematician and sci-fi author Rudy Rucker for H+ Magazine:

“Wolfram|Alpha isn’t really a search engine, because we compute the answers, and we discover new truths. If anything, you might call it a platonic search engine, unearthing eternal truths that may never have been written down before.”

Despite his disclaimer, Wolfram|Alpha looks like a search engine, in that there’s a one-line box where you type in a question. The output appears a second or two later, as a page of text and graphics below the box. What's happening behind the scenes? Rather than looking up the answer to your question, Wolfram|Alpha figures out what your question means, looks up the necessary data to answer your question, computes an answer, designs a page to present the answer in a pleasing way, and sends the page back to your computer.

Rucker then goes on to detail how the beta version answered some questions:

Let me give three random examples. If you enter the query, “3/26/2009 + 90 days” you’ll get a page that gives a date ninety days later than the first date. If you enter “mt. everest height length of golden gate” you’ll get a page expressing the height of Mount Everest as a multiple of the length of the Golden Gate Bridge. If you enter “temperature in los gatos,” you’ll get something like the current temperature, a graph of the temperatures over the last week with projections for the next few days, and a graph of the temperatures over the last year.

Wolfram|Alpha can pop out an answer to pretty much any kind of factual question that you might pose to a scientist, economist, banker, or other kind of expert. The exciting part is that you’re not just looking up pages on the web, you’re getting new information that’s generated by computations working from the known data. Wolfram says the response can be so speedy because, “We’ve found that, of all the things science can compute, most take a second or less.”

Hmmm. So, is it shorter to New York or by bus?

Whole fascinating H+ Magazine article here.

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High Every Body|4.7.09 @ 10:54AM|#

Taktix®,

I'll break the engine with "What is the libertarian take on foreign policy?"

Doen't we already know that one? Goes something like: "Hey, stop invading us, we were leavin everybody alone and beat our swords into plowshares(sp?). And stop taxing our products, we gave up our tariffs . . ."

|4.6.09 @ 3:39PM|#

It should just answer "42" to every question.

|4.6.09 @ 3:40PM|#

So it's like "Ask Jeeves" except it really works?

Paul|4.6.09 @ 3:47PM|#

This fuckin' thing better not be a glorified chatbot, or I'm gonna get medieval on something.

|4.6.09 @ 3:52PM|#

Damn,

Epi you beat me to the 42 answer. This post just screamed "42"!!

|4.6.09 @ 3:53PM|#

When it's running, I'm going to ask it this question: "Are you a god?"

High Every Body|4.6.09 @ 3:53PM|#

Can you imagine a Beowulf Cluster of those?

|4.6.09 @ 3:57PM|#

Maybe they can name it "John Henry".

Mango Punch|4.6.09 @ 4:14PM|#

Sounds cool, but I wonder if there is an easy way to verify the information, or what it does if it gets conflicting data.

|4.6.09 @ 4:16PM|#

I wonder if it can tell me how many illigitimate children I have...

I know a text messaging service I saw on late night television that can tell you if your sig-o is cheating, I bet this thing can't do that.

SpongePaul|4.6.09 @ 4:28PM|#

It should just answer "42" to every question.

-----
ah but 42 is the answer to the great question. not just any question.

Warty|4.6.09 @ 4:28PM|#

What happens if I ask it to play global thermonuclear war?

|4.6.09 @ 4:31PM|#

Wasn't there a Delphi search engine in the before time?

Perv|4.6.09 @ 4:35PM|#

How are babby formed?

|4.6.09 @ 4:35PM|#

As for this "Platonic" business, what does that mean? The search engine will reveal the Platonic Forms?

|4.6.09 @ 4:37PM|#

What happens if I ask it to play global thermonuclear war?

It would clearly tell you that the only winning move is not to play.

Xeones|4.6.09 @ 4:40PM|#

The search engine will reveal the Platonic Forms?

If you're not careful, it will calculate the forbidden geometry of the Dho-Na curve and open a gateway to let in eldritch horrors from beyond space and time.

Taktix®|4.6.09 @ 4:40PM|#

I'll break the engine with "What is the libertarian take on foreign policy?"

|4.6.09 @ 4:43PM|#

Don't be silly, Xeones, that could initiate CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN...oh shi

Kolohe|4.6.09 @ 4:44PM|#

Wasn't there a Delphi search engine in the before time?

There was the USENET Oracle back in the Classical Age.

|4.6.09 @ 4:47PM|#

Plato is a bore.
-Nietzsche

Elemenope|4.6.09 @ 5:18PM|#

"Are you a god?"

"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say yes!!!"

Gilbert Martin|4.6.09 @ 5:30PM|#

There is an article in the 4/13/09 issue of Forbes about this.

|4.6.09 @ 5:49PM|#

The tangent of 10, to the hundredth.

David Reiss|4.6.09 @ 6:27PM|#

Readers interested in some thoughts on Wolfram Alpha will might find my blog on the subject interesting. It's at

http://www.alpha-tips.com/alphatips/blog

Thanks!

--David (the blog's author...)

engineer|4.6.09 @ 9:44PM|#

Will I ever graduate from college? Thing is, I'm not going to tell you where I go, but I can tell you that I'm a sophomore in mechanical engineering.

anarch|4.6.09 @ 11:15PM|#

I hope Kenneth tells it what the damn frequency is.

Tacos mmm...|4.6.09 @ 11:55PM|#

Didn't Gödel already deal with this?

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