The Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine is the latest link in the chain of computing history that started some 4,000 years ago with the invention of written language and the abstraction of counting objects with numbers—mathematics. So claimed Stephen Wolfram, the mastermind behind Wolfram Alpha, in a speech given June 15, 2009, in Munich, Germany.  

Wolfram Alpha, which debuted in May 2009, answers natural language questions by bringing together information from various sources to provide comparisons and foster new insights. The goal of Wolfram Alpha is to “map small, sloppily written questions onto the universe of knowledge,” said the inventor.

One of many historical precursors cited by Wolfram in his remarks, Gottfried von Liebniz, similarly sought to invent a universal symbolic language that could apply to everything, particularly knowledge stored in libraries. 

Unlike some fields of study, such as artificial intelligence, Wolfram Alpha is not intended to mimic human reasoning, but to apply computing power to existing information to generate new factual correlations. Most questions are unique and have never been asked before. So the answers are unique also, Wolfram said.

Although the project is a long-term endeavor, and is now still in its early stages, Wolfram said it has already captured the information found in a typical reference library. As to what Wolfram Alpha will become and what its role in life and business might be, Wolfram said, “The purposes evolve as the technology evolves. We can’t foresee all the purposes. There’s much that’s possible, but what we choose to do depends on the thread of our history.”