If there’s one thing that can be certain about the nature of current trends in science and technology, it’s that the only constant is change. We live in an age of undeniable innovation, a cultural brew of new methods and ideas bubbling up at every turn.

True innovation is the very spice of life. Our palettes would be terribly dull without new and exciting figurative flavors of knowledge to sample. The scientists, developers, and researchers who devote their lives to seeking this knowledge are the real chefs amongst us. These are the modern day Renaissance men of our culture. The ideal of the Renaissance man is based on the notion that an individual’s capability for personal development is without limitations. The capacity to excel in a vast field of knowledge should be a consistent goal within every Renaissance man’s grasp.

Stephen Wolfram is one such modern man that has soared above and beyond the pack in his perpetual quest to seek and spread knowledge. Wolfram ultimately represents an integral piece of the scientific puzzle of how to view the universe. He believes that automating knowledge would represent an ultimate step in the progression of technology. This might seem like quite the uphill struggle for most humans, but not for Wolfram. This is the story of how Wolfram’s work has virtually transformed the study of science and introduced a gambit of new technology into the knowledge pool of innovative wonder.

Described by WIRED magazine as “the Bob Dylan of physics,” Wolfram has always defiantly marched to the beat of his own drum. He was a prodigy from the start, publishing his first scientific paper at the ripe age of 15 and subsequently completing a PhD in particle physics at the California Institute of Technology. By the age of 21, Wolfram joined the ranks of the Caltech faculty, earning a MacArthur “genius” award. This paved the way for future scientific computing endeavors, including the establishment of his company Wolfram Research in 1987.

Wolfram thus began the development of his first product, Mathematica, which is revered amongst scientists, financial analysts and engineers. This stunning new software automates mathematical processes by solving equations, plotting graphs and analyzing data through models. Mathematica essentially accomplished for higher math what the spreadsheet accomplished for business models. The overall success of this product allowed Wolfram the freedom to continue to march to the beat of his own drum as a renegade independent researcher and scientist.

The next series of events in Wolfram’s life has almost become an urban legend within the scientific community. The freedom to research independently led to Wolfram’s subsequent phase of utter social reclusion. Under a self-imposed house arrest of sorts, he diligently devoted all of his time to the completion of his 2002 book, A New Kind of Science. While the world slept in the wee hours of the morning, Wolfram worked.

This work and research reached an apex with the foundation and recent launch of Wolfram|Alpha, an ongoing concept aimed at making universally accessible knowledge computable. This daring undertaking is made possible thanks to the 500+ person staff boasting PhDs in myriad subjects of expertise including physics, astronomy, biology, and engineering at Wolfram Research. “There is no dramatic distinction between the processes of the weather and the workings of the human brain,” said Wolfram. “There isn’t anything incredibly special about intelligence- it’s just sophisticated computational work that has grown up throughout human history.” Through the development of Wolfram|Alpha, he seemed to be asserting that computation is the key to unlock universal mystery.

Wolfram realized that the bigger challenge is not the underlying data, but the computations that get done on them. So he essentially dared to organize thinking in such a way that it’s finite enough to construct a coherent system explaining everything. With Wolfram|Alpha, he attempted to create an "insanely ambitious thing, like the science fiction computers of old" in order to create an extensive knowledge base that would compute the answers to questions with the click of a button.

But how does this technology differ from various other search engines? Google, for example, runs a search for words. It directs the user only to material that has already been written, which may lead the user astray due to the superfluous amounts of information scoured. Rather than attempting to organize knowledge in a similar fashion as Google, Wolfram|Alpha seeks to make that very knowledge computable, and in doing so, to make the web more advanced through the method of our interaction with knowledge. If this doesn’t scream innovation, I don’t know what does.

But how are these answers generated? Wolfram’s company of renowned researchers spend their days scouring libraries and interviewing specialist in order to calculate results using his complex computing language. Wolfram|Alpha has been gaining popularity over the past year, and now incorporates ten trillion data points.

If this really is, according to Wolfram, the biggest integrated data set in the world to date, then the information must be coded in the cleverest of ways once it enters the database so as to not confuse the questions asked by the user. Wolfram maintains a distinct advantage over websites based upon a knowledge pool due to the fact that coding through Mathematica has always been his forte.

This approach to knowledge is certainly a “new kind of science,” just as the title of his book would assert. The product of over a decade’s worth of reclusive work is the bold attempt to persuade the scientific contingent that computer programs should override mathematics in terms of unveiling the complex systems governing nature.

In 2010, Wolfram presented his findings at the TED conference in California, comparing his establishment of Mathematica to Galileo’s construction of a telescope. He took it one step further by comparing himself to none other than Newton, stating that his new kind of science is superior to the mathematic based archaic science of centuries past. The audience seemed to agree, and gave this modern day Renaissance man a standing ovation.

At any rate, convincing the scientific community as a whole that his ideas are worth accepting will be no easy task. Perhaps the director of curatorial affairs at Seattle's Science Fiction Museum Therese Littleton said it best when she remarked, “Whether or not Wolfram's revolution ultimately gives us the keys to the universe, his new science is absolutely awe-inspiring."

For readers interested in viewing Wolfram's synopsis of his computational knowledge engine, check out this video:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html