And can we even agree on the definition of ‘nothingness’? “Alone, I often fall down into nothingness. I must push my foot stealthily lest I should fall off the edge […]
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Is everything astonishingly simple, though? Or is this a grandiose claim that falls flat when confronted with the evidence? “My main interest is the problem of the singularity. If we […]
Catch MIT scientist Sara Seager take you to the cutting edge and into the future, with a live blog (plus commentary) right here! “Hundreds or thousands of years from now, […]
If everything began with a Big Bang and is expanding, is there a center? “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out […]
It’s only a matter of time before another star has a close encounter with our Solar System. How long do we have? “From an incandescent mass we have originated, and […]
In an exciting development for electric cars, Elon Musk, the C.E.O. of Tesla Motors, has announced on the company’s blog that he’s making all of Telsa’s patents public in the […]
If you were taught it was Christopher Columbus, you aren’t alone. But just how much we knew thousands of years ago may surprise you! “When Columbus lived, people thought that the […]
Spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen will be joining us on Big Think Live this Friday at 4pm Eastern time. His philosophy and spiritual method, evolutionary enlightenment, is an approach to achieving […]
Jesse Bering is the author of the new book, “Why is the Penis Shaped Like that?: And Other Reflections on Being Human.” He is well known in my circles as […]
When I was in high school in the USA in the late 1980s, the big Asian language that many of my peers wanted to learn was Japanese. A half-decade later, […]
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of what astronomers believe may be the oldest galaxy ever seen—over 13 billion years old!
It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth).
Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay.
Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.
Alan Boyle, the science editor for MSNBC.com, answers our questions about science, the mainstream media and the fallout of the Chilean earthquake coverage.