Wolfram|Alpha Coincidence

My sister forwarded me a link to the overview video for Wolfram|Alpha, a web site that bills itself as a computational knowledge engine. Both of us are always looking for sites that make doing research on the Internet easier. As a very simple example for using Wolfram|Alpha, you can enter any date and get back a wealth of information on it. When I tried that feature, a factoid popped up that coincided exactly with something unrelated I read yesterday.

First, a quick initial impression of the web site. After watching the introductory video, you’ll want to bookmark the site. Judging from its canned examples, the information returned for queries in the fields of science, economics, weather, health care, and others is impressive. Wolfram|Alpha purports to understand human ways of asking questions and to save you time by making assumptions based on where you are (using your IP address). But to use it best, you have to think in terms of computations. When you stray from asking for information its designers have already categorized using its algorithms, the results are either not what you want or nonexistent.

A few examples: With the NBA finals starting soon, I asked which team won last year. The site can define the abbreviation NBA, but it’s clueless about sports records. My neighbor is buying a Toyota Tacoma. A person researching vehicles would understand that together the two words constitute a truck name. Wolfram|Alpha’s response is to compare the cities of Tacoma, Washington, and Toyota, Japan. Finally I wanted to know how many smokers there are in my home state. The site returned a ton of demographic, economic, and geographic data about Washington, but nothing on smoking.

OK, so there’s a learning curve for becoming proficient at using Wolfram|Alpha. Don’t toss out the grab-bag of links to other research sites you have gradually acquired—not yet anyway. The site is just getting started. According to the About page, their goal of making all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone is long term. The best part: Wolfram|Alpha returns information, not a list of links like search engines. Also it’s free.

Back to my coincidence. Last night I started reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the third book in the late Stieg Larsson’s trilogy. Before calling it quits and going to bed, I glanced through the notes at the end, which mention several Swedish politicians, scandals, and events. Today, when I was trying out the Wolfram|Alpha web site, I typed in my birth date. One of the names returned as being born on that day sounded familiar. Sure enough it was former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt, whose name I had read just last night.