7 Wolfram Alpha Features You Probably Didn't Know Existed

If you've been on the internet for a while, you might know Wolfram Alpha as the website where you chuck your calculus homework to get answers in a jiffy. At the time, it already felt like a cheat code and was whispered like a secret among students. Alongside the great math teachers of YouTube's past, there was a time when it was a crucial tool for some to survive the perils of secondary education. But, after years of making computational data accessible, Wolfram Alpha is still very much not just alive but also thriving with the rise of natural language processing algorithms. 

Through the years, Wolfram Alpha's main website has improved its interface to make it easy to ask a question, type in your math problem, use the on-screen keyboard, and upload photos from your computer. If you're feeling bored, there's even a cute little button that you can press just to see some random facts. In 2024, Wolfram Alpha offers a range of products and services, which include specialized tools for educators, developers, and enterprises.

For people who need more hardcore computation for their own data, there's a Wolfram Alpha Pro subscription that starts at $5 per month, which can help users visualize complex information into digestible means. Wolfram Alpha even released app versions that you can download on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows for your on-the-go computational needs. But, whether you're using your desktop or mobile phone, here are some features that you may have missed out on.

For people who are starting their personal health journey, Wolfram Alpha can be a convenient companion to figuring out the nitty gritty aspects of transitioning to a healthier lifestyle. Although there are many components that make a "healthy" person, there are two things that Wolfram Alpha can definitely give you more clarity on — nutrition and movement. One of the most fundamental components of overall health is what you use to fuel your body. While the ideal diet may change depending on your existing health conditions, there is some fundamental knowledge that anyone should know, like understanding nutrition labels. 

For example, you can check the nutrition facts about things that are usually part of your grocery haul, like your favorite soda. Not to mention, if you're trying to learn how to substitute similar food, you can use Wolfram Alpha to compare nutrient components in food. In addition, you can even compare what activities burn the most calories, which isn't limited to exercise. For example, Wolfram Alpha can give you a rundown of which form of bed rotting (watching TV or sleep) expends the most oxygen or burns the most fat. Spoiler: It's watching TV.

But take note, while Wolfram Alpha does draw its numbers from relevant sources, it's important to understand that there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to health and fitness. Although its suggestions are good benchmarks for the average person, nothing really beats a professional opinion that takes into consideration your individual condition, medical history, and lifestyle.

While Wolfram Alpha can't book flights or hotels for you, it does have the tools to help you craft the perfect itinerary and understand each destination uniquely. If you're planning a multi-city trip, you can check travel distance estimations via car, train, plane, and other forms of transportation. For road trips, you can estimate the cost of gas for your different stops, taking into account fuel usage and gas station locations. In the middle of your trip, you can even see facts about the cities, compare airports, and check the popularity of national parks. 

History lovers can also get a kick from being able to make interesting links, like knowing how old artists were when they made their notable artwork. For example, Wolfram Alpha shares that Leonardo Da Vinci was 50 when he made the famous Mona Lisa. On the other hand, should you fall in love with a city and actively want to check if you can afford to live there, you can even hypothetically check information about the cost of living, including a side-by-side comparison with your current city and average prices for products you use every day.

While you're at it, you might also want to check out our recommendations for apps for meeting people abroad or for stress-free road trips. Once you've had the broad aspects of your trip lined up, you'll want to start packing your clothes for the trip. And what better way to prepare than to check the weather?

In this day and age, having a weather widget on your Android phone screen or an app on your Apple Watch can keep you from being unprepared for rainy days or expected snowstorms. But for more comprehensive weather reporting features, did you know Wolfram Alpha has a lot to offer? Sure, you have your standard forecast with the coldest and the warmest expected temperatures, plus broad conditions like heat index, relative humidity, and wind speed. But it has other tricks up its sleeve, too.

For example, you can also review the cloud cover conditions so you know how much time of overcast you have. In addition, you can also review the previous days' rain, thunder, storm, and fog conditions, which can help guide your plans. There are even some interesting details about the local sunlight, like where it is sitting on the horizon, its azimuth, and its altitude. Not to mention, you'll also be able to view the temperature ranges between the different weather stations, which is a godsend for hikers or travelers who traverse elevations. 

This can be useful if you're planning to go hiking up a mountain wherein the increased elevations can lead to several degrees of temperature difference. This can help you plan for what to wear and what to pack. However, it is important to take note that Wolfram Alpha isn't able to pull the same amount of data for all destinations. In some cases, it may have limited data from some local weather stations.

Hosting a big house party in a few days? There are probably a million things on your checklist, especially if you're doing all the cooking yourself. Sure, there are plenty of smart kitchen gadgets that can already do some of the thinking for you, but cooking for a family of four is a completely different experience from cooking for dozens of people. With Wolfram Alpha, you can easily type "1.5 tablespoons quadrupled," and not only can it do the math for you, but it can also generate results in tablespoons, cups, and quarts.

Not to mention, it can even tell you how it weighs with more relatable objects, like how heavy it would be in terms of M&M candies (or an iPhone). While it can sound funny, this can be super useful to people who don't have fancy measuring equipment in their kitchen, like scales, or home chefs who like to eyeball ingredient quantities. Plus, it's a great way to build the skill of rough estimation.

Lastly, you may be borrowing family recipes from across the pond, which can be confusing if you're bad at math and don't remember the right things to multiply. Thankfully, Wolfram Alpha can help you scale kitchen conversions so you can better follow recipes without needing a calculator and easily shift between measurements. For example, you can also use Wolfram Alpha to convert things like cups to liters or even Fahrenheit to Celsius (and the other way around).

On the flip side, if you're planning to have games like Quiz Nights, you can generate facts about NFL statistics or video games. Similar to carnival games of the past, you can even create interesting theoretical questions like how much rice grains you need to go around the moon. For board game lovers, you can get suggestions on what board games are best suited for certain age groups or get information about specific board game information, like how many players can be part of it, so that you can prepare the right mix of games for the people in attendance.

If you're not sure how to impress a certain crowd, Wolfram Alpha has an entire section dedicated to generating jokes, including jokes meant for niche groups of people like physicists or doctors. And if you're a little left behind and don't understand why people find a certain joke funny, you can even ask it to explain a punch line to you. Although — because humor is pretty relative, there's no guarantee its jokes can make anyone laugh, especially if you lack a good delivery. But, if you're into more traditional games, there's also a Scrabble score calculator that you can use. After all, you want to spend more time actually playing than tallying up scores.

Taking control of your finances can be daunting, especially if you're the first in your family to have the means to do so. Thankfully, there's an entire Wolfram Alpha section dedicated to answering questions related to personal finance. For example, it can help you get clarity on your financial situation by breaking down how down payments or interest rates on your different loans affect your total payments.

If you're struggling with debt, you can use the platform to estimate the expected time you can pay off different types of debt, like your credit card balance. You can also use it to compare your different loan options for auto loans, such as how much more will change if you increase the initial down payments. Or, you may want a visualization of how your mortgage actually works so you know how much of your payments go to your principal or interests at a certain point.

That said, Wolfram Alpha can only provide tools to help you evaluate your existing situation and plan for your financial future. At the end of the day, the platform isn't accountable for giving you financial advice like licensed financial advisors, and it's important to know that strategy is only half the equation. After all, what good are recommendations when they're not applied to the real world? Once you've established the right strategy, you can check out our list of best budgeting apps that can help keep you on track with your financial goals.

Any writer will tell you the constant struggle of finding the right words. Thankfully, Wolfram Alpha has an entire section dedicated to words & linguistics. Aside from the standard dictionary-like capabilities, like providing definitions, synonyms, and acronyms, you can also use it as a translator, create anagrams, and find rhyming words. From a technical point of view, Wolfram Alpha has tools that can be super useful when you're in the middle of planning for a book made for publishing, such as document length calculations per number of words, characters, and pages. 

Depending on what you're writing, Wolfram Alpha can even give a rough estimate of the typical typing, speaking, and silent reading times to help guide how you split up acts. And if you're in the world-building stage of your next novel, some nifty ways to expand your world include comparing languages, finding spoken languages in a country, and even translating words into Morse code. In fact, if you're hoping to add things like animal companions to your characters, you can even ask Wolfram Alpha "weight of insect type of Digimon" or "all types of Pokemon" for some inspiration.

In tandem with Wolfram Alpha, you might also want to download a writing app for your Mac, like Scrivener, Bear, and UpNote. But, if you prefer using Google Docs for your professional writing needs, we have a couple of hacks that can revolutionize the way you write, which include making use of sidebars, shortcuts, and templates.