Mission Control

May 22, 2009

The Wolfram|Alpha control room was very useful during our launch countdown last weekend. We were able to monitor different aspects of our testing at the same time simply by looking up at all the screens on the wall. Here are some more photos of the room.

Working hard and checking out the progress.

Stephen Wolfram explaining the information on the screen.

Checking out the view from above.

41 comments to “Mission Control”

  1.  

    That looks awesome. Looks like a neat environment to work in!

  2.  

    It’s a very nice room. I suppose it will be used to monitor Alpha from now on.

    Is Alpha monitored 24h per day?

    Thanks

    •  

      Yes it is. I wonder if all the stats and monitors are all custom designed.

      •  

        Yes, all the stats are custom-built in Mathematica. All the code to create them was written in a few days leading up to the launch, possible pretty much only because we created them in Mathematica. What you see on the screens is a Mathematica notebook document configured as a full-screen dynamically updating display.

        Theodore Gray
  3.  

    WOW!
    That’s like NASA in films. Great!

  4.  

    that room looks like nasa room…

    oscar
  5.  

    I like the big spinning log projected on the wall.

    apexskier
  6.  

    Wow, I would love to work at Wolfram when I leave education. That looks awesome(and Mathematica looks REALLY good if only it were cheaper :P

  7.  

    I am so jealous of anyone that works there. It seriously does look like Mission Control for NASA–as seen in the movies.

    Additionally, the processing power of them supercomputers is enough to make you …drool.

  8.  

    Looks like a mini rocket launch session in progress to me. Great Work. I just ran a couple of queries on your server farm. Impressed with the result. One example was x + y = 9, where the result was a plot of the line. A personal discontent was that wolfram|alpha was not able to plot my timeline as it did for Obama and Einstein…

  9.  

    There must be a market for a film or TV program covering the launch.even if they started assembling the material now. The overcoming of each particlar problem would be fascinating with the sneaking suspicion that they might not be overcome. Now that it is assured of success there will be more interest.

    Brian Gilbert
  10.  

    Does anyone else think that when the economy turns around, these people and the awesome capabilities they are creating, is going to lead to a growth and efficiency based upon information fusion into real time actionable knowledge?

    Tom Schaefer
    •  

      Sadly it will take some time for the potential of W|A to be appreciated,

      In ‘The Land of the Blind’, by H.G.Wells, a man that can see, stumbles upon an isolated community of people born blind. He expects that he will be made King.
      In the event he overhears them deciding he is crazy and that the cure is to poke his eyes out. He quickly departs.

      The many adverse reviews saying how stupid W|A is, bear me out. I have told many intelligent people about it and been greeted by most but not all with a lack of interest

      The tipping point will come when those using W|A commercially start knocking the spots off those that don’t.

      It may end the recession not follow it.

      Brian Gilbert
  11.  

    WoW
    It looks amazingly great!

    Omar
    http://www.idomainreseller.com

  12.  

    very cool

    Sir_Sid
  13.  

    why that is but a wee shanty compared to AT&Tt noc….the big displays are choice and awesome- good spacing…not overdone. this is human side of it; if and when it really takes off they will have shiopping containers with rack upon rack of servers. crunch those numbers! I think if they take a cue from wiki and really try to get people involved and have some good basic algorithms (maybe a user selectable filter for what algo you want to use). fact is people around the world will contribute to a worthy program and if they can users onboard they will benefit immensely.

  14.  

    Nice setup! Green with envy! Great work guys.

    Heres a thoughy, I think WA should show me its queries’ chart when I ask “how are you doing?” …another easter egg perhaps? : )

    •  

      Great idea Nael, that will be awesome.

      Faraz
    •  

      While waiting for W|A’s query chart you could draw your own. Input to W|A

      wolframalpha.com daily visitors

      Brian Gilbert
      •  

        Could be misunderstood. I meant that a query chart is not available yet as far as I know. Not that W|A was slow in execution.

        Brian Gilbert
  15.  

    I’ve been at Wolfram’s headquarters a few times. The rest of it ain’t all that cool except for where Theo Gray sits with all his Elements paraphernalia.

    Math Persons
  16.  

    Espero que en algun momento salga en español

    Luis Manuel
  17.  

    If you want to grow rapidly, you must make us surprise in the search experience every day and let us look forward to it.

    gotall
  18.  

    beautiful~~~~

    sally
  19.  

    This is amazing. What it takes to work here?

  20.  

    Wow
    Amazingly Great…………………….

  21.  

    such a wonderful job …keep going… do you use Maple version math program ?

    maziati
  22.  

    Yes, I follow W|A from the exact moment they made it public. And witnessed the launch live.
    I am telling everybody I know that we are watching the birth of a new era, elevating the use and spreading of kwnoledge exponentialiy for humankind.:-)
    I am optimistic and hoping than soon enough it will be in Spanish. The second language in internet.

    Jorge

  23.  

    Science-fiction;)wow

  24.  

    Wow is’t amazing!
    It looks amazingly great!

  25.  

    you need some windows ;)

    Rob
  26.  

    Wow its science-fiction !

  27.  

    That is really something!

  28.  

    Great! its wonderful

  29.  

    /cynic is that w|a’s NOC or their hosting provider’s NOC. Why would w/a want to waste valuable human resources monitoring simple usage metrics? It doesn’t require w|a to send a snmp alarm haha /cynic

    AW
  30.  

    Great! its wonderful!!!

  31.  

    Damn, I envy people like you who don’t need an excuse to go here.

    wut