How to use Wolfram Alpha to Name Your Next Child

or 23 Surprising Things You Can Do With Wolfram Alpha

Maybe you have heard of Wolfram Alpha, that computational powerhouse. It is known for its number crunching and equation solving abilities, but Wolfram Alpha can do a lot more than just solve x+2=3.

Wolfram Alpha can provide broad, deep, and expert-level data on just about anything. It is a search engine, but not like other search engines. Google catalogs the Internet and brings you web pages relevant to your search query. Wolfram Alpha returns data. Surprisingly deep data. Say you search the term Cheetah. Google will return pages like Wikipedia which give you a good basic understanding. Wolfram Alpha returns things like: taxonomy, lifespan, weight, average tail length, etc.

Wolfram Alpha can give weird results if you don't word your query just right, but if you fiddle with it you can uncover a wealth of data.

Here are just a few examples of the interesting, weird, and fun non-math things you can do with Wolfram Alpha:

1. Research Baby Names

With Wolfram you can find popular names (or least popular names) based on the current naming frequency. You can also search specific names. My own name is quite popular, but has slid down a bit from its glory days in the 80s.

2. Calculate the Due Date

Speaking of babies, figure out when yours is due. Use: "due date, last period=3/14/17" to get an estimate.

3. Find Your Next Car

You can use Wolfram to compare car models on loads of different attributes. Looking for the best gas mileage? How about looking for something that can carry more than five passengers.

4 . Shop Online

Type into Wolfram queries like dish washers, cameras, etc., and Wolfram will let you compare and sort models based on various attributes. Looking for the thinnest camera?

5. Improve Your Nutrition

Name a food and Wolfram will give you the nutrition label facts and then go deeper. The graph below shows the nutrient content of whole wheat pasta compared to other foods.

To dive a little deeper you can search for foods high in a specific nutrient like vitamin D.

You can even get nutrition information for recipes by inputting multiple foods e.g. 3 eggs + 1 cup flour + 3 cups butter + etc.
You can literally compare apples to oranges.

6. Get the Stats on World Landmarks

Typing in the name of a famous structure, mountain, lake, etc., and Wolfram will give you all the relevant stats: height, depth, location, etc. For mountains it even gives an elevation profile.

7. Find the Tallest Building Near You

For most major cities Wolfram will rank the tallest buildings for you. No need to ask a tour guide.

8. Find Out More About Yourself Than You Wanted to Know

Type in Female or Male then a height and weight and Wolfram goes way beyond the standard BMI calculator. I had no idea my blood volume is 13 pints.

9. Track the Sun

Get sunrise and sunset times for your city. It also gives you solar angles which could be useful if you were trying to find the best position for you sun umbrella or working on a passive solar design.

10. Compare Websites

Quickly and easily compare website traffic data statistics like steemit.com vs facebook.com. Putting in a single website will let you look at the traffic history of that site.

11. Plan International Warfare

Use Wolfram as your personal intelligence agent. Know if you are out-gunned before you head in.

12. Find Out How Many Things Fit On Something

The next time you need to figure out how many Oreos lined up end-to-end if would take to go around the world (900 million) Wolfram can help you out.

13. Use Morse Code

Type in Morse code "I need help." and Wolfram will help you get help in Morse code.

14. Rhyming Dictionary

Whether you are rapping or writing poetry just put in "words that rhyme with _____" and you're golden.

15. Estimate Read Time

The query "5000 words" will give you an estimate of not only how long it would take to read that much silently, but also how long it would take to speak it and to type it.

16. Convert to Roman Numerals

Wolfram Alpha will quickly convert numbers into Roman Numerals and several other ancient number systems.

17. Convert Units

Convert from feet to meters, or more obscure units like beard-seconds.

18. See the World Through Your Dog's Eyes

Wolfram Alpha also has several image processing routines like 'dog eyes' or 'edge detection'. See more image filters here:www.wolframalpha.com/examples/

19. Learn Yoga

Stretch it out after crunching data. Type in a yoga pose and Wolfram will show it to you.

20. Get Commodity Prices

Gas, grain, coal, etc. Whatever you need to know Wolfram has got you covered.

21. Compare the Cost of Living

Compare the price of things like milk or gas in various cities around the world.

22. Find Your Next Dog

Separate dog breeds with commas and Wolfram will give you a side to side comparison of all the vital stats and some others including how much they shed and litter size.

23. The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

Enough said.