So Wolfram|Alpha is finally live. People have had mixed luck with it, as have I. Some items, especially related to mathematics and the physical sciences are really well represented. Others, not so much. When it works, it works brilliantly. Take a search for something like “ice”
Not only do you get some great information, all on one page, you also get some other interesting options like the Mathematica form
and chemical identifiers
As I was playing around with it all day, and applying for API access, a few thoughts kept returning to my head. Obviously, this is still very early days, and while Alpha has a gorgeous interface, there are also a lot of holes. I would encourage everyone who cares for systematic knowledge to become a participant. A project of this magnitude needs input. As Pawel and others have noted, the life science data could use some heft. On the other hand you can already see the potential.
Now here comes the challenge. I love Mathematica. Hari tells me that it has become even more powerful with Mathematica 7, but the Mathematica business model and approach is from a different era. My hope is that with appropriate APIs, Wolfram|Alpha will become a front end to complex mathematics, and allow more people to leverage the underlying engine and symbolic language and perhaps building the right abstractions that allows people to express concepts without jumping into the guts. You can already open results from Wolfram|Alpha in Mathematica, which gives me all sort of ideas, but the licensing and business models need to evolve. There are a lot of smart people in the world and they should be encouraged to leverage the underlying engines easily and build this knowledge base.
Also while Wolfram|Alpha doesn’t leverage the web, it would be interesting to see how one could, perhaps using the API leverage linked data and sources like Freebase. One thing that we shouldn’t forget is that while the emphasis is on systematic formal knowledge, there is a lot of that in the world and limiting it to one organization is highly limiting. There is a lot of formal knowledge in the world, e.g. the PDB and PDBsum. You should be able to pull that information into Wolfram|Alpha, or some alternative front end to the service and make linkages to queries.
The other thought that keeps coming to mind is the possible impact on interest in mathematics and systematic knowledge. That assumes that they can overcome teething issues, and expand the knowledge base, but if computational thinking is a good thing, perhaps having a computational engine available to all will help make some of those concepts more accessible.
And on the geeky side, I am re-reading The Foundation Trilogy on our new Kindle 2, and can’t help drawing parallels between the Encyclopedia Galactica and Wolfram|Alpha, although Pierre might have a point when he compares the Galactica to Wikipedia.
Maybe this won’t happen, but it could, and I hope it does. Google, Wikipedia, Wolfram|Alpha, two well established, and one nascent, but together, the three make quite a triumvirate of information, complementing each other well. Add to that sources like Freebase and we continue to move towards a world where information and knowledge at different levels gets increasingly accessible and available. The hope is that as that happens, we can solve new problems, and add to that knowledge at a broader scale than we ever have.
Some early Wolfram|Alpha driven thoughts
So Wolfram|Alpha is finally live. People have had mixed luck with it, as have I. Some items, especially related to mathematics and the physical sciences are really well represented. Others, not so much. When it works, it works brilliantly. Take a search for something like “ice”
Not only do you get some great information, all on one page, you also get some other interesting options like the Mathematica form
and chemical identifiers
As I was playing around with it all day, and applying for API access, a few thoughts kept returning to my head. Obviously, this is still very early days, and while Alpha has a gorgeous interface, there are also a lot of holes. I would encourage everyone who cares for systematic knowledge to become a participant. A project of this magnitude needs input. As Pawel and others have noted, the life science data could use some heft. On the other hand you can already see the potential.
Now here comes the challenge. I love Mathematica. Hari tells me that it has become even more powerful with Mathematica 7, but the Mathematica business model and approach is from a different era. My hope is that with appropriate APIs, Wolfram|Alpha will become a front end to complex mathematics, and allow more people to leverage the underlying engine and symbolic language and perhaps building the right abstractions that allows people to express concepts without jumping into the guts. You can already open results from Wolfram|Alpha in Mathematica, which gives me all sort of ideas, but the licensing and business models need to evolve. There are a lot of smart people in the world and they should be encouraged to leverage the underlying engines easily and build this knowledge base.
Also while Wolfram|Alpha doesn’t leverage the web, it would be interesting to see how one could, perhaps using the API leverage linked data and sources like Freebase. One thing that we shouldn’t forget is that while the emphasis is on systematic formal knowledge, there is a lot of that in the world and limiting it to one organization is highly limiting. There is a lot of formal knowledge in the world, e.g. the PDB and PDBsum. You should be able to pull that information into Wolfram|Alpha, or some alternative front end to the service and make linkages to queries.
The other thought that keeps coming to mind is the possible impact on interest in mathematics and systematic knowledge. That assumes that they can overcome teething issues, and expand the knowledge base, but if computational thinking is a good thing, perhaps having a computational engine available to all will help make some of those concepts more accessible.
And on the geeky side, I am re-reading The Foundation Trilogy on our new Kindle 2
, and can’t help drawing parallels between the Encyclopedia Galactica and Wolfram|Alpha, although Pierre might have a point when he compares the Galactica to Wikipedia.
Maybe this won’t happen, but it could, and I hope it does. Google, Wikipedia, Wolfram|Alpha, two well established, and one nascent, but together, the three make quite a triumvirate of information, complementing each other well. Add to that sources like Freebase and we continue to move towards a world where information and knowledge at different levels gets increasingly accessible and available. The hope is that as that happens, we can solve new problems, and add to that knowledge at a broader scale than we ever have.
Related articles by Zemanta