Wolfram|Alpha1 has been available to the general public for seven weeks now, allowing plenty of time to test drive it and uncover its strengths and weaknesses. What I’ve found is that it’s a surprisingly powerful tool for the science fiction writer.
Where traditional internet search engines like Google return a list of links that may or may not lead to the answer the user seeks, Wolfram|Alpha attempts to cut out the middle steps and deliver the actual answer directly to the user. Wolfram|Alpha really shines when you’re seeking specific factual information. Let’s look at a couple of examples of what might arise when conducting research for a science fiction novel.
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| 47 Ursae Majoris b Wolfram|Alpha search |
Extrasolar Planets
Assume I’m working on the next Nebula-winning novel and I’ve set the story on 47 Ursae Majoris b (an exoplanet I vaguely remember hearing about when it was discovered in 1996). I plug the planet’s name into Wolfram|Alpha and immediately get a wealth of information. I now know that 47 Ursae Majoris b is 45.86 light years from Earth and it is located in the constellation Ursa Major.2 About the only thing it doesn’t tell me is whether the planet is inhabited. (Some things have to be left to the imagination of the writer!)
Now let’s assume that in my novel, the inhabitants of 47 Ursae Majoris b decide to travel to another exoplanet from which they’ve picked up radio signals indicative of intellegent life — Epsilon Eridani b. I plug the names of both exoplanets into Wolfram|Alpha and discover the two are 50.81 light years apart. Based on my novel, I “know” the inhabitants of 47 Ursae Majoris b can only reach about 70% of the speed of light, so I ask Wolfram|Alpha how long the trip to Epsilon Eridani b will take at .7c. It turns out they’ll be traveling for 72.6 years (not counting time to accelerate and decelerate).
For this first test, Wolfram|Alpha gave me all of the information I needed and the research took a fraction of the time it would have using traditional search engines.
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| September 4, 1963 Wolfram|Alpha Search |
Historical Settings
For my next Nebula-winning novel, the protagonist is thrown back in time3 to a random date I’ve just pulled out of thin air — September 4, 1963. But I know nothing about that date … not even what day of the week it fell on. Let’s plug the date into Wolfram|Alpha and see what we get.
I immediately learn that September 4, 1963 was a Wednesday, that the time difference from today is 45 years, 10 months and 2 days,4 sunrise was at 6:19 am U.S. Central Time, and there was a waning gibbous moon that day. Now for my novel, the protagonist arrived in Chicago after traveling back in time. I want to make sure I have the details correct, so I ask Wolfram|Alpha to tell me the “weather in Chicago on September 4, 1963.” I learn that on that date in that city, it was 63 degrees Fahrenheit, overcast and rainy, with light winds up to 8 mph. Perfect dreary weather for my character to drop out of a time portal, lost in space and time.
Of course there are limits to the historical information available through Wolfram|Alpha, but the tool does an amazing job extrapolating for those cases where it doesn’t have definitive data. Building on the previous example, I asked Wolfram|Alpha to tell me the “weather in Rome on January 17, 1193.” It tells me the weather data for that day is not available, but then makes predictions based on overall weather data for that location (guessing an average temperature of 45 degrees Fahrenheit).5
Other Areas of Expertise
Wolfram|Alpha serves up an impressive amount of hard data that can help science fiction writers build their stories. You can query formulas for everything from algebra to organic chemistry.6 Wolfram|Alpha even has a sense of humor. Ask it, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” and Wolfram|Alpha responds:
“Angels are pure intelligences, not material, but limited, so that they have location in space, but not extension. Therefore, an infinity of angels can be located on the head of a pin. (according to Dorothy Sayers (who also maintains that the question is simply a debating exercise))”
These examples barely scratch the surface of what Wolfram|Alpha can do. Overall, my experience using Wolfram|Alpha as a writing resource has been a positive one. In the past when I needed some fact to add credibility to something I was writing, I would use Google to find a data source, explore the links Google provided, and hopefully find the fact I was seeking. Now I ask Wolfram|Alpha and — more often than not — it provides the fact I’m seeking. Often (as an added bonus) it also provides related facts that I hadn’t even thought about, but which suddenly become an integral part of what I’m writing.
If you write science fiction, or any other genre that makes use of factual data, I encourage you to check out Wolfram|Alpha.
Notes:
- If you’ve somehow missed all the hype, Wolfram|Alpha calls itself a “computational knowledge engine.” It essentially is a new kind of search engine. Its ambitious goal is to provide all objective data in a way that allows users to crunch, convert, compute and compare that data. [↩]
- In fact, Wolfram|Alpha provides a star map and tells me the exoplanet’s exact location in the sky based on the fact I’m in Milwaukee at the moment. [↩]
- No doubt this character was playing around with Red Matter, the amazing McGuffin from the latest Star Trek film that — defying the laws of physics — enables black hole-powered time travel. [↩]
- Useful information when wondering how far back in time my character has traveled. [↩]
- Wolfram|Alpha also points out that it is using an extrapolated Gregorian calendar for that date, just in case I’d forgotten how the official calendars have shifted between 1193 and 2009. [↩]
- For example, ask about eicosapentaenoic acid and you’ll learn the chemical formula is CH_3(CH_2CH=CH)_5(CH_2)_3CO_2H. [↩]
Friend, this is a very nice idea, remember to keep sharing any other tips regarding the use of Wolfram|Alpha, I have used the tool, but I must confess I havent found my way in its use; I hope that with this ideas I will do better.
Very nice article! I will definitely make good use of Wolfram|Alpha for some exoplanetary research!
[…] Read the rest here: Wolfram|Alpha for Science Fiction Writers | Tomorrow Sage […]
W|A has some nice SF-related easter eggs, too. Try searching for “Can entropy be reversed?”
And best of all: Armed with W|A, none of your characters will claim to have made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs.
Unfortunately, Wolfram claims (as part of the Terms of Service of the search service) that the output is actually copyrighted. From the TOS:
“If you make results from Wolfram|Alpha available to anyone else, or incorporate those results into your own documents or presentations, you must include attribution indicating that the results and/or the presentation of the results came from Wolfram|Alpha.…Failure to properly attribute results from Wolfram|Alpha is not only a violation of these terms, but may also constitute academic plagiarism or a violation of copyright law.”
So while you could find all this great information out, you would not be able to (legally) write fiction to sell / distribute / publish.
Lunchlady55 — Thanks for raising this point.
The copyright restrictions associated with Wolfram|Alpha (Terms of Use) are not that unusual for reference books (encyclopedias, dictionaries, textbooks, etc.) and even some online reference tools. Thus today most fiction writers need to possess some basic understanding of copyright law in order to know what legally can or cannot be used when conducting research for – and crafting – their works of fiction.
A couple of legal questions should be considered when using Wolfram|Alpha (as I proposed in the original article) as a resource for writing science fiction:
1. Is the content found using Wolfram|Alpha being reprinted/reproduced within the author’s work of fiction, or did that content merely serve as an inspiration?
2. If content from Wolfram|Alpha is being incorporated into the work of fiction, is the author adhering to the Terms of Use (i.e., providing attribution, securing a commercial use license when required, etc.)?
In my case, when I write science fiction (and I suspect I’m somewhat typical among fiction writers) most of the initial and background research that I gather never makes it directly into the final novel or short story. For example, I initially might research the distances between different star systems where a novel takes place. Thanks to the introduction of Wolfram|Alpha, I now can look up those distances using that tool. The actual chart and data that Wolfram|Alpha provides, however, most likely would never make it into my actual novel. (To include that chart, I would need to create a scene that likely would seem unnaturally contrived in the flow of the story.) Instead I might use the chart and information to map out the novel’s timeline, or to make plot decisions about where characters might realistically travel.
In the event that I did wish to reprint/reproduce content verbatim from Wolfram|Alpha (i.e., calculated data, a quote or definition, etc.), the Wolfram|Alpha service does offer a “low-cost or no-cost commercial use license” designed for use in commercial and for-profit situations.
As a matter of personal practice, even if I don’t directly reprint content from a specific research source, I still like to provide a “thank you” in print acknowledging that resource. Such acknowledgements can credit everyone from a community historical society (which helped me gain a sense of local flavor and culture) to a friend (who asked a critical question that took a subplot in an entirely new direction). None of this is required under copyright law, but I believe it is appropriate (and helps strengthen those relationships for when I research my next work). And although I haven’t yet published anything written using Wolfram|Alpha as a research tool, for such future works I would include an acknowledgement and attribution for Wolfram|Alpha (even though no actual content from Wolfram|Alpha may appear in the final published work).
Finally, in their Terms of Use the Wolfram|Alpha folks invite people to reach out to them with any questions (Contact Wolfram|Alpha), so a writer can contact them directly with any questions about whether – and how – a particular piece of information can be incorporated legally into a story. If you have any doubts about any specific situation, ask them.
Copyright Resource:
In the not too distant future, I hope to post an article that examines US copyright law and how it applies to fiction writers. In the meantime, a great resource for US copyright information is the website for the US Copyright Office.