Straight talking Wolfram dodges the curly questions

IN case you missed it, this week the British launched a new search engine to rival Google. It's called Wolfram Alpha (wolframalpha.com) and it was designed and built by a 49-year-old physics genius, Stephen Wolfram.

Unlike Google, Wolfram is designed to give you real answers to your questions.

To explain. Were you to enter the question: "What is the population of Australia?" into Google, you wouldn't get an answer. You'd get a list of articles about Australia and you'd have to dig around to find the number.

Enter the same question into Wolfram, and you get: "20.7 million." Just that, and nothing more. You've got to admit, that's clever.

But Wolfram isn't just clever. It's funny.

For example, on its first few days of operation, some wags on Twitter - which is quickly becoming the sweet spot on the internet, crammed with people hamming it up - entered some curly questions into Wolfram, to see what might come up.

One person tried: "How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man?" To the sheer delight of all involved, the reply came back: "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind."

Emboldened Tweeters then tried: "To be or not to be" and Wolfram came back with: "That is the question." It's beyond cute, which is why the energised underbelly of the internet - again, that would be Twitter - is obsessed with asking questions of Wolfram.

Some treat the thing like a person.

If, for example, you ask: "Who are you?", it will say: "Wolfram Alpha." If you ask: "And where do you live?", it will say: "On the internet." And if you say: "Hello", it will reply: "Hello, human."

Here at News Limited, we tried: "Who is Kevin Rudd?" To our delight, Wolfram replied: "An Australian politician from Nambour", Queensland, which isn't exactly wrong. Next, we tried: "Who is Malcolm Turnbull?", but Wolfram couldn't tell us, so we tried the next most vexing political question of our time, "What are Peter Costello's plans?", but Wolfram, like the Liberal Party, had no idea. We tried: "Who is Wayne Swan?" Again, it had nothing but, strangely, if you enter: "What's the debt forecast for Australia?" Wolfram says: "$300 billion." No, just kidding.

We tested Wolfram on current affairs, specifically, the Matthew Johns story, asking: "Does no always mean no?" It refused to say, so we tried the other question that naturally arises from the group sex saga: "Charmyne Palavi, hot or not?"

Wolfram wouldn't be drawn.

Like all tech nerds, Wolfram is lousy at sport. It couldn't tell us Donald Bradman's batting average, nor the year the Sydney Swans last won an AFL premiership. Dylan aside, it's not much good at music trivia, either. A colleague, Matthew Clayfield, put in "War, war, what is it good for?" but Wolfram did not say, as expected: "Absolutely nothin'." Undaunted, Clayfield then tried: "When are you gonna come down? Where are you going to land?" But sadly, those questions also went unanswered.

Wolfram does not know how much wood a woodchuck can chuck or who stole the cookie from the cookie jar, and if you ask: "What is best in life?", and it will not say, as Conan the Barbarian did: "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

It's slightly better at jokes. If you ask: "Why did the chicken cross the road? it will say: "To get to the other side", but then again, if you ask: "What came first, the chicken or the egg?", Wolfram, like the rest of us, is stumped.

Parents won't be pleased to know that when you say: "What's the magic word?", it doesn't say: "Please." It doesn't know when enough is enough, either, which was the point at which we decided it was perhaps best to get back to work, but please, do try it yourself, and report back to us: "What would Jesus do?"; "If you leave me, can I come too?"; "When will I be loved?"; "Why can't we be friends?"; "Who shot J.R.?"; and "How long is a piece of string?"

We did ask: "Where's Wally?" But Wolfram didn't know, and ditto with "Got milk?" It's got no idea where the cops are when you need them, either. On the other hand, when asked about the meaning of life, Wolfram correctly answered: "42."

Which got us thinking, hey, maybe it could answer the question that even Freud, in a lifetime of scrutiny, couldn't solve: "What do women want?" Sadly, Wolfram, like Freud, didn't know.

On the other hand, put the same question into Google, and you get a picture of MelGibson.

Google, you are so 2008.