A REVOLUTIONARY search tool that computes answers, rather than pointing to related websites, was hailed as a potential rival to Google as it was officially launched yesterday.

Wolfram Alpha searches its own databases of information and other sources to find the specific answer to a user’s question, instead of returning hundreds of website links which may or may not contain the information.

The system, called a computational knowledge engine, is the brainchild of London-born physicist Dr Stephen Wolfram and aims “to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone”.

Dr Wolfram, 49, said: “Fifty years ago, when computers were young, people assumed that they’d be able to ask a computer any factual question, and have it compute the answer.

“I’m happy to say that we’ve successfully built a system that delivers knowledge from a simple input field, giving access to a huge system, with trillions of pieces of curated data and millions of lines of algorithms.

“Wolfram Alpha signals a new paradigm for using computers and the web.”