Steven Wolfram’s new “knowledge engine” has launched to mixed results.  While the tool is just as powerful as advertised in some areas (like the comparing stocks, answering physics questions, or performing complex numerical calculations), there are other areas where it falls short of the mark.

While Wolfram|Alpha can compare the 2008 season of the Oakland A’s against that of the San Francisco Giants, it still can’t figure out when the baseball season begins.  Perhaps, in time, Wolfram Research will be able to work out the bugs.  But for the time being it is still a very specialized tool.

Thankfully, Wolfram|Alpha does excel at both providing color information.

Type in the name of any color, and it will give you a swatch of that color.   It will also tell designers the code or pigment combination necessary to recreate the color online and in print.  Wolfram|Alpha also creates a small palate of related colors that can be used together with the originally named color to make effective designs.

Try it out yourself.  I’d suggest starting with something simple like “red,” but you can also use more complex colors, like “burnt umber” or “cerulean,” or even add colors together like “green + yellow.” Just remember to come back to us. This tool will take you to Wolfram|Alpha’s site

If you find that the palate it generates is too small, you can click on the link titled “more colors” and that section of the page will expand to give you additional options.

If your business happens to deal more with material sciences or optics, you can also tell Wolfram|Alpha a black body temperature or a wavelength, and it can create a swatch of the apparent color.  The engineers at Wolfram have not yet made it so that you can get from these swatches to the palate generation, but this is most likely just a matter of time.

So while, Wolfram|Alpha may not be able to make your page for you, it can certainly give you a way to talk to your designers and developers about what kind of color or color combination you want.

What color(s) did you try out?  Did Wolfram|Alpha go straight to the color, or did it give you some fun trivia first?