Wolfram Alpha Search Engine

Update:  Also see this latest post about Wolfram Alpha and Cellular Automata: 

As a user of Mathematica in Graduate school I remember how cool Mathematica was in doing some pretty complex Plasma Physics equation work.  So when Wolfram says that he is about to do something new I am one of the first to listen.

What have we got here:

• Natural Lanuguage (Check)
  
• Symbolic Language (Check)
  
• Basics of Physical Reality (Check )
  
• Math (Check )
  
• Cellular Automata (Check)

So I guess in just about 45 days time Wolfram will fire up the engine.  I just hope the answer to every query wont be 42.

Update:  Just reading Nova Spivacks excellent writeup and  comments on this and strangely enough the naswer may well be 42 (for those of you who dont find this number familiar, 42 is the answer to the universe given by a really powerfull computer in Hichhikers guide to the Galaxy).

OK so as Spivack explains, Wolfram Alfa doesnt simply search the web or reference data it actually calcualtes the answers.  Spivacks comments after having been demoed the system by Wolfram are astounding.  

Evidently Wolfram Alfa has done the following create "contexts" or domains of information with reusable calculation modules.  These modules might be pure math or simple programs.  

We often think of math something we have invented to explain the universe based on emperical evidence but in fact if you drop enough matches on a table you will find the number Pi which leads to the calculated answer of a circle.  This intersection between math and cellular automata in this way leads to an answer to the circumference of the earth.  So by putting a natural language processor on top and grabbing the implied context(s) and deviations you could skip the math part and vary the bottom layer algorithms of the physical universe to calculate the answer.  In other words somebody asks for the distance of flight from Madrid to Sydney and instead of calculating the arc via mathemtical formula you start dropping sticks or some reduced mini celluar automata.  

Lets say you want to know how strong the TV signal is in a valley.  First you figure out the domain which in this case is radio waves and transmission.  Youget the relevant input like radio tower locations and terrain but then you dont use Maxwells Equations you use the fact that space is 3 dimensional and that something must spread from here to there.  You include the terrain in the model and calculate and calculate and drop lower order terms.

So we can think of the stack the normal way we deal with stuff as:

1. Ideas
   
2. Language
   
3. Physics and Empirically Observed Results (Theory)
   
4. Math
   
5. Cellular Automata of the Universe

Wolfram Alfa seems to cutout the middle and deal with it this way:

1. Ideas
   
2. Language
3. Cellular Automata of the Universe

Update 3:  OK just ran into this job add which says that Wolfram is adding 75 positions from various diciplines.  While this add does not the actual product it seems like Wolfram Alfa to me.  They use the terminaology "data packlets".  The articles talk about hiring researchers for data mining and curating.

My guess is that these interns will be checking the validity of the results of the Celluar automata calculations. 

This is really way out there!  This is lightyears ahead of Semantic Web.