Wolfram Research, Inc.
TypePrivate
IndustryComputer software, Publishing, Research and Development
Founded1987 (1987)
FounderStephen Wolfram, Theodore Gray
Headquarters
Champaign, Illinois
,
United States
Key people
ProductsWolfram Mathematica, Wolfram Workbench, gridMathematica, webMathematica, Wolfram Alpha, SystemModeler, Wolfram Programming Lab, Wolfram One, Wolfram Engine for Developers, Function Repository, Neural Network Repository, Data Repository
OwnerPrivately held
Number of employees
~400[1]
DivisionsWolfram Media Inc., Wolfram Research Europe Ltd. in the United Kingdom, Wolfram Research Asia Ltd. in Japan and Wolfram Research South America in Peru.
Websitewolfram.com

40°05′50″N 88°14′44″W / 40.097128°N 88.245690°W / 40.097128; -88.245690

Wolfram Research, Inc. (/ˈwʊlfrəm/ WUUL-frəm) is an American multinational company that creates computational technology. Wolfram's flagship product is the technical computing program Wolfram Mathematica, first released on June 23, 1988. Other products include WolframAlpha, Wolfram SystemModeler, Wolfram Workbench,[2] gridMathematica, Wolfram Finance Platform,[3] webMathematica, the Wolfram Cloud, and the Wolfram Programming Lab.[4] Wolfram Research founder Stephen Wolfram is the CEO. The company is headquartered in Champaign, Illinois, United States.

History

The company launched Wolfram Alpha, an answer engine on May 16, 2009. It brings a new approach to knowledge generation and acquisition that involves large amounts of curated computable data in addition to semantic indexing of text.[5]

Wolfram Research acquired MathCore Engineering AB on March 30, 2011.[6][7]

On July 21, 2011, Wolfram Research launched the Computable Document Format (CDF). CDF is an electronic document format[8] designed to allow easy authoring[9] of dynamically generated interactive content.

In June 2014, Wolfram Research officially introduced the Wolfram Language as a new general multi-paradigm programming language.[10] It is the primary programming language used in Mathematica.[11]

On April 15, 2020, Wolfram Research received $5,575,000 to help pay its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the U.S. government's Paycheck Protection Program administered by the Small Business Administration. The loan was forgiven.[12][13]

Products and resources

Mathematica

Mathematica began as a software program for doing mathematics by computer, and has evolved to cover all domains of technical computing software, with features for neural networks, machine learning, image processing, geometry, data science, and visualizations. Central to Mathematica's mission is its ability to perform symbolic computation, for example, the ability to solve indefinite integrals symbolically. Mathematica includes a notebook interface and can produce slides for presentations. Mathematica is available in a desktop version, a grid computing version, and a cloud version.

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha is a free online service that answers factual queries directly by computing the answer from externally sourced curated data, rather than providing a list of documents or web pages that might contain the answer as a search engine might. Users submit queries and computation requests via a text field and Wolfram Alpha then computes answers and relevant visualizations.

On February 8, 2012, Wolfram Alpha Pro was released, offering users additional features(e.g., the ability to upload many common file types and data — including raw tabular data, images, audio, XML, and dozens of specialized scientific, medical, and mathematical formats — for automatic analysis) for a monthly subscription fee.

In 2016, Wolfram Alpha Enterprise, a business-focused analytics tool, was launched. The program combines data supplied by a corporation with the algorithms from Wolfram Alpha to answer questions related to that corporation.[14]

Wolfram SystemModeler

Wolfram SystemModeler is a platform for engineering as well as life-science modeling and simulation based on the Modelica language. It provides an interactive graphical modeling and simulation environment and a customizable set of component libraries. The primary interface, ModelCenter, is an interactive graphical environment including a customizable set of component libraries. The software also provides a tight integration with Mathematica. Users can develop, simulate, document, and analyze their models within Mathematica notebooks.

Publishing

Wolfram Research publishes several free websites including the MathWorld and ScienceWorld encyclopedias. ScienceWorld, which launched in 2002, is divided into sites on chemistry, physics, astronomy and scientific biography.[15] In 2005, the physics site was deemed a "valuable resource" by American Scientist magazine.[16] However, by 2009, the astronomy site was said to suffer from outdated information, incomplete articles and link rot.[17]

The Wolfram Demonstrations Project is a collaborative site hosting interactive technical demonstrations powered by a free Mathematica Player runtime.

Wolfram Research publishes The Mathematica Journal.[18] Wolfram has also published several books via Wolfram Media, Wolfram's publishing arm.[19][20] In addition, they have experimented with electronic textbook creation.[21]

Media activities

Wolfram Research served as the mathematical consultant for the CBS television series Numb3rs, a show about the mathematical aspects of crime-solving.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Follow the money: See where $380B in Paycheck Protection Program money went". CNN. Retrieved 2021-03-16.
  2. ↑ "Wolfram Workbench: State-of-the-Art Integrated Development Environment". www.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  3. ↑ "Wolfram Finance Platform: Ultimate Financial Computation Environment". www.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  4. ↑ "Wolfram Programming Lab: Computational Thinking Starts Here". www.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  5. ↑ Johnson, Bobbie (2009-03-09). "British search engine 'could rival Google'". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
  6. ↑ Rao, Leena. "Wolfram Research Acquires Modeling And Simulation Software Developer MathCore". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-11-14.
  7. ↑ Wolfram, Stephen (30 March 2011). "Launching a New Era in Large-Scale Systems Modeling".
  8. ↑ Wolfram Alpha Creator plans to delete the PDF The Telegraph (UK)
  9. ↑ Wolfram makes data interactive PC World
  10. ↑ "Wolfram Language reference page". reference.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2014-05-14.
  11. ↑ Slate's article Stephen Wolfram's New Programming Language: He Can Make The World Computable, March 6, 2014. Retrieved on 2014-05-14.
  12. ↑ "Wolfram Research, Inc in Champaign, IL - SBA PPP Loan Data (Paycheck Protection Program)". www.federalpay.org. Retrieved 2021-03-17.
  13. ↑ Willis, Moiz Syed,Derek (2020-07-07). "WOLFRAM RESEARCH, INC. - Tracking PPP". ProPublica. Retrieved 2023-03-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  14. ↑ Castellanos, Sara (February 7, 2019). "Computing Pioneer Stephen Wolfram Creates Data-Analysis Tool for Business". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
  15. ↑ W., Weisstein, Eric. "ScienceWorld FAQ". scienceworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2017-07-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. ↑ "American Scientist Online – Eric Weisstein's World of Physics". 2005-03-19. Archived from the original on 2005-03-19. Retrieved 2017-07-25.
  17. ↑ Johnson, Gareth J (2010-05-04). "Eric Weissteins's World of Astronomy". Reference Reviews. 24 (4): 32–33. doi:10.1108/09504121011045728. ISSN 0950-4125.
  18. ↑ The Mathematica Journal official site.
  19. ↑ Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science sets a new standard in more ways than one by Charlotte Abbott, Publishers Weekly, 6/24/2002
  20. ↑ "Wolfram Media: Titles". www.wolfram-media.com. Retrieved 2016-08-01.
  21. ↑ Eisenberg, Anne (17 December 2011). "Online Textbooks Aim to Make Science Leap From the Page". The New York Times.
  22. ↑ "Numb3rs 307: Blackout". Cornell University. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
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