You might not have heard of Steven Wolfram, the genius behind Mathematica, a program that, "...seamlessly integrates numeric and symbolic computations, interactive document capabilities, an advanced programming language, and powerful connectivity."  I've enjoyed watching demonstrations of Mathematica, but never could afford to plunk down $US 2500. The Home Edition at $US 295 tempts me.

Wolfram also created the Wolfram Alpha search engine: www.wolframalpha.com, which gives engineers, scientists, and students information and analysis that other Web sites lack.  If you type in "US GDP 1950-2005" (without the quotes) you'll see how the Wolfram Alpha site interprets the input and then produces information in graphical form that include historical plots of gross domestic product in billions and trillions of dollars on a log scale. You also get real GDP and a GDP chain-weighted index.  (For information on chain-weighted GDP, see: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~mchinn/chain_GDP.pdf.)

Want to see what a math function looks like? Just type it in and the Mathematica back end provides more information than you would find on other sites. The function sin(x)/x produces two plots, a series expansion, the derivative, the indefinite integral, and other information.  Type "loan amortization" and you get a worksheet that lets you compute the present value of a given sum, number of compounding periods, and an interest rate.

Type "apple ibm intel" and you'll see stock values, stock-price histories, realized return vs. volatility, and return on a portfolio of these stocks. When I entered "utah unemployment 1990-2008" the Wolfram Alpha site displayed four helpful plots.  The site isn't perfect, though.  When I typed "boiling point vs. altitude," the results showed boiling points for several chemical elements. The phrase "water boiling point vs altitude" didn't do any better.  Finally, "boiling point of water at 5000 feet" gave me the answer I sought.

The Wolfram Alpha site includes examples by topic, a gallery of examples, and a short video that explains how the site works and how to enter information to obtain useful information. Unlike, say, Google or Bing, Wolfram Alpha answers specific questions and does not dig up general information on a topic.  So, sin(x)^4 + cos(x) provides good information, but "best brownie recipe" only tells you about the composition of a typical brownie (including 23 grams, 95 calories), not how to bake one.

You might want to buy a bag of brownies before you sit down to try Wolfram Alpha.  It's addictive and you can spend a lot of time using it and just having fun with math equations and factual queries.  I sure wish I had this type of tool in high school and college. --Jon Titus