Wolfram|Alpha: A Computational Knowledge Engine SEMINAR REPORT 2009-2011 In partial fulfillment of Requirements in Degree of Master of Technology In SOFTWARE ENGINEERING SUBMITTED BY NIDHI S DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE COCHIN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY KOCHI – 682 022 COCHIN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY KOCHI – 682 022 DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the seminar report entitled “Wolfram|Alpha: A Computational Knowledge Engine” is being submitted by NIDHI S in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of M.Tech in Software Engineering is a bonafide record of the seminar presented by her during the academic year 2009. Dr.Sumam Mary Idicula Prof. Dr.K.Poulose Jacob Reader Director Dept. of Computer Science Dept. of Computer Science ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First of all let me thank our Director Prof: Dr. K. Paulose Jacob, Dept. of Computer Science, who provided with the necessary facilities and advice. I am also thankful to Dr. Sumam Mary Idicula, Reader, Dept. of Computer Science, for her valuable suggestions and support for the completion of this seminar. With great pleasure I remember Mr. G. Santhoskumar for his sincere guidance. Also I am thankful to all of my teaching and non-teaching staff in the department and my friends for extending their warm kindness and help. I would like to thank my parents without their blessings and support I would not have been able to accomplish my goal. Finally, I thank the almighty for giving the guidance and blessings. Wolfram|Alpha: A Computational Knowledge Engine Abstract Wolfram Alpha is an answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might. It was announced in March 2009 by Stephen Wolfram, and was released to the public on May 15, 2009. Wolfram Alpha is almost more of an engineering accomplishment than a scientific one — Wolfram has broken down the set of factual questions we might ask, and the computational models and data necessary for answering them, into basic building blocks — a kind of basic language for knowledge computing if you will. Then, with these building blocks in hand his system is able to compute with them — to break down questions into the basic building blocks and computations necessary to answer them, and then to actually build up computations and compute the answers on the fly. Users submit queries and computation requests via a text field. Wolfram Alpha then computes and infers answers and relevant visualizations from a core knowledge base of curated, structured data. Alpha thus differs from semantic search engines, which index a large number of answers and then try to match the question to one Wolfram Alpha is built on Wolfram's earlier flagship product, Mathematica, which encompasses computer algebra, symbolic and numerical computation, visualization, and statistics capabilities. With Mathematica running in the background, it is suited to answer mathematical questions. The answer usually presents a human- readable solution. CONTENTS 1. Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 2. Goals --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 3. How does Alpha works? ------------------------------------------------------- 3 4. Mathematica ------------------------------------------------------------------- 6 4.1. gridMathematica --------------------------------------------------------- 8 4.2. Features ------------------------------------------------------------------ 9 4.3. Interface ------------------------------------------------------------------ 10 4.4. High performance computing -------------------------------------------- 11 4.5. Development ------------------------------------------------------------- 12 4.6. Connection with other applications ------------------------------------- 12 4.7. Computable data --------------------------------------------------------- 15 4.8. Licensing ----------------------------------------------------------------- 15 4.9. Platform availability ------------------------------------------------------ 16 4.10.Support ------------------------------------------------------------------- 16 5. Wolfram Alpha API ------------------------------------------------------------- 17 5.1. The “Query” API ---------------------------------------------------------- 17 5.2. Basic of Wolfram Alpha output ------------------------------------------- 19 6. Five things Wolfram|Alpha does better than Google ------------------------ 22 6.1. Complex queries ---------------------------------------------------------- 22 6.2. Localization --------------------------------------------------------------- 22 6.3. Precision ------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 6.4. Calculation ---------------------------------------------------------------- 23 6.5. Comparison --------------------------------------------------------------- 23 7. Applications -------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 8. Future -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 9. Conclusion --------------------------------------------------------------------- 25 10. Reference --------------------------------------------------------------------- 26 Wolfram|Alpha: A Computational Knowledge Engine 1. Introduction Wolfram Alpha is an answer engine developed by Wolfram Research. It is an online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from structured data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might. It was announced in March 2009 by Stephen Wolfram, and was released to the public on May 15, 2009. Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries. When Wolfram Alpha was released to the public in May 2009, many people were surprised when it did not function like Google or any other search engine. The reason for this is that Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine, but a computational knowledge engine. Wolfram Alpha is far from perfect at this time, but it is already a tool that may find great use in the day-to-day work of the average college student and is sure to only get better with time. Dept. Of Computer Science & Engg. ~ 1 ~ Cochin University of Science & Technology Wolfram|Alpha: A Computational Knowledge Engine 2. Goals Wolfram|Alpha's long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries. Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people—spanning all professions and education levels. Our goal is to accept completely free-form input, and to serve as a knowledge engine that generates powerful results and presents them with maximum clarity. Wolfram|Alpha is an ambitious, long-term intellectual endeavor that we intend will deliver increasing capabilities over the years and decades to come. With a world-class team and participation from top outside experts in countless fields, our goal is to create something that will stand as a major milestone of 21st century intellectual achievement. Dept. Of Computer Science & Engg. ~ 2 ~ Cochin University of Science & Technology Wolfram|Alpha: A Computational Knowledge Engine 3. How does WolframAlpha work? Wolfram Alpha is a system for computing the answers to questions. To accomplish this it uses built-in models of fields of knowledge, complete with data and algorithms that represent real-world knowledge. For example, it contains formal models of much of what we know about science -- massive amounts of data about various physical laws and properties, as well as data about the physical world. Users submit queries and computation requests via a text field. Wolfram Alpha then computes and infers answers and relevant visualizations from a core knowledge base of curated, structured data. Alpha thus differs from semantic search engines, which index a large number of answers and then try to match the question to one. Dept. Of Computer Science & Engg. ~ 3 ~ Cochin University of Science & Technology Wolfram|Alpha: A Computational Knowledge Engine Alpha has 4 major components: Data curation: Alpha doesn’t feed off the entire web but rather works off a managed database and certain trustworthy sources (Alexa and US Census info being among them). Data which does not change is managed and categorized whereas the sources are polled regularly for relevant, up-to-date information. Computation: 5-6 million lines of Mathematica spread across lots of parallel processors (10,000