21 Cool Non-Math Things You Can Do With Wolfram Alpha
21 Cool Non-Math Things You Can Do With Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is not Google. They may look and even feel similar, but Google it is not. Google helps users navigate the expansive global Web via a friendly (but highly effective) interface. Wolfram Alpha, on the other hand, utilizes its brawny computing power to package raw data into digestible servings. It can be extremely frustrating to use—unless you structure your query in just the right way, you may not get what you are looking for.
Let’s say you wanted to learn all about trumpeter swans. A Google search returns a number of helpful links on the topic. And that’s all you need 99 percent of the time. A query on Wolfram, on the other hand, brings back the species’ extended scientific taxonomy, average weight (29 lbs for males, 22 lbs for females), age of sexual maturity (2 years for both genders), and “eggs per clutch” (4 to 8).
Another way to think about it: Google is the friendly research librarian who helps you find exactly what you are looking for, while Wolfram Alpha is the annoying guy at work who just LOVES to show off how much he knows by showering you with facts and figures. You would never choose to hang out with that guy in your spare time, BUT that is exactly who you want on your team when you have to dive deepinto some data.
Many of Wolfram’s functions deal with advanced mathematical acrobatics that you probably don’t understand and will probably never need to use. However, for those times when you need to really get into a topic—anything from the life cycle of sea anemones to Asian grain futures—Wolfram should be a central part of your research. It’s particularly apt at culling socioeconomic data (e.g. “unemployment in Minnesota“) and organizing comparisons between two things (it allows you to literally compare apples and oranges). For those times you want graphs, tables, and data sets, Wolfram is your best friend.
While math may be Wolfram’s strong point, it isn’t all that Wolfram can do. It can use its super number crunching nerd powers for many non-number things. Here are just a few cool, weird, fun, and even occasionally practical things you can do with Wolfram that have nothing to do with solving for X.
1. Get Scrabble Scores for Specific Words
Take the Wolfram advantage in your next game night. Type the word “Scrabble” before any other word and Wolfram will crunch that word’s Scrabble point value.
2. Create Anagrams
Type “anagram” followed by any word or phrase into Wolfram to search for possible anagrams. Note that Wolfram will only return whole single English-language words—i.e. it won’t return a phrase or multi-word anagram answer.
3. Apply Image Filters to Just About Anything Using Only Text
Wolfram allows you to apply basic visual effects to just about any image that you can find online using only basic search queries. Here’s a list of just some of the image filters Wolfram has available.
4. Convert Numbers to Ancient Pictograms
This function has close to zero practicality, but it’s fun to play with. Wolfram allows you to convert any whole number into a handful of ancient numerical systems. Just type “[any integer] to [any numerical system including Babylonian, Mayan, Roman, Greek, or Japanese abacus]” and Wolfram will return a bunch of ancient craziness.
5. Determine Your Lineage
Wolfram won’t help you trace your family tree all Ancestry.com-style, but it will help you know how to refer to people at family reunions. This has a practical function for me: Nearly all my grandparents are off-the-boat immigrants, so they came from biiig ol’ families, which means my family gatherings are filled with a billion people I barely know and whose relation to me is nebulous at best. Thankfully, Wolfram allows me to write their familial relation to me in plain English (e.g. my father’s cousin’s mother) and it will return the proper description of their relationship.
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