On May 15, 2009 Wolfram|Alpha (sometimes just called WolframAlpha) went online. Wolfram|Alpha (in the following just refered to as “WA”) is an answer engine, meaning it can handle complete sentences and questions as search queries.

The special thing about WA is that it doesn’t just display a filtered collection of links to other websites matching your search query, it rather “compiles” all available information on the internet into a overview page showing all interesting facts about the term you searched for.

Currently, the website is mainly focussed on natural sciences (mathematics, physics, engineering), geographical data, stocks and unit conversion, but I’m sure more topics will follow soon. Currently, searching for “The Beatles” returns nothing, but searching for a some mathematical equations gives you a hell lot of information: Plots, Limits, the Derivative, Series representations, Integrals, … It can even show you the way it computed the Derivative with explanations about the methods used.

When entering cities or countries, you will get a map and information about the population, weather, flag, languages, currency and so on. Wolfram|Alpha can also compare data, e.g. the GDP of China and the USA.

Whole sentences are fragmented into different parts, e.g. “Where was Bill Gates born” is structured into “Bill Gates” and “place of birth”, resulting in “Seattle, Washington” and the geographical information about Seattle. Wolfram|Alpha answers some questions in a humorous way, e.g. when asking for the meaning of life, it returns “42″ (quote from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”).

All in all, Wolfram|Alpha seems to be a very good alternative to Google when searching for information in one of the topics mentioned above and wanting to have a quick overview over the most important data.