We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.
A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think
Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.
Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.
Browse videos featuring experts across a wide range of disciplines, from personal health to business leadership to neuroscience.
Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.
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A fistful of knowledge.
1. The first Earth Day was observed on April 22, 1970. It was celebrated by over 20 million people. Here is Walter Cronkite reporting on the first Earth Day. Shortly afterward, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was born. 2. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in 1972. The ...
3-D printers are currently capable of producing usable car parts, cat-scanned reproductions of ancient Sumerian clay envelopes with letters inside, and cool-looking geometric desktop toys. That’s very exciting indeed. But what if they could print a transplantable kidney? Biomedical 3-D printing ...
Austin is weird. The town’s tagline, “a collaborative fission of coordinated individualism,” is part hilarious and part profound. However it really is on point... the town is extra-ordinarily unique. Maybe it’s the ratio of dive bars to coffee shops, or the endless live music and array of life ...
“The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite. When I say ‘It is our duty to remain optimists,’ this includes not only the openness of the future but also that which all of us contribute to it by everything we do: we are all responsible for what the future holds in store. Thus it is our ...
“Autonomy, adventure, imagination: entrepreneurship comprehends all this and more for us. The characteristic art form of our age may be the business plan.” -William Deresiewicz Imagine you are a painter for a moment. In front of you is a blank canvas, sitting desolate on its stand, awaiting your ...
When seeking intellectual stimulation on the Internet, TED can be regarded as one of those special “signals within the noise”. The site releases one talk a day, helping to create a reputation of quality over quantity; at a time when web surfers are drowning in link-overload, this has been a great ...
Science fiction writer William Gibson famously stated on NPR’s Fresh Air back in 1993, “The future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed.” It’s a quote that in many ways still holds true today, illustrating the divide between developed and developing countries, and even more ...
Bioengineers at Maastricht University have announced the world's first lab-grown meat will be produced this October, a significant step in what could become a DIY food revolution. According to the Financial Times , 70 percent of agricultural land is currently used for raising animals for their ...
Read 'em and weep. Or just add your own ideas at the bottom of this post. 1. Julian Schnabel. Bombastic, prolific, self-promotional, and grandiose, Schnabel was the ethos of 1980's NYC writ large in vibrant strokes on bold canvases. In his early career as a painter, he reportedly churned out ...
1. Leave your wallet behind. Swipe your mobile phone instead. Perhaps we'll remember 2011 fondly as the year the credit card died. In January, Big Thinker (and tech entrepreneur) James Currier reported that Biometrics had gone mainstream -- and that your leather wallet would soon be replaced by a ...
If you were marooned on a desert island and could only bring a handful of books with you--let's say five--which ones would you pick? Who better to ask than Stephen Greenblatt, the father of the New Historicist movement in literary theory and the bestselling author of Will in the World, a biography ...
Boo! Scared you, didn't I? I'm guessing not really. If you're a grown-up, Halloween has probably lost its edge. Or at least its scary edge. The old tricks simply no longer work on adults. Instead of scaring us, this tradition mostly involves handing out candy to children, visiting cheesy haunted ...
We are currently living in the "learning decade," according to entrepreneur Sam Herring. "Learning has gained new prominence as a critical lever for performance," he emphasizes: "More and more organizations recognize that learning can help solve the most vexing economic and financial problems of ...
It used to be that rock music, which is anti-Establishment down to its DNA, could not be re-purposed for commercial licensing. That is, if artists wished to maintain credibility with their fans. Boy, how things have changed. Big Think looks at five of the most prominent sell-outs (or savvy sales ...
As Summer 2011 draws to a close, we at Big Think are taking a look back at the most significant ideas presented on our site by Big Think experts. You, our viewers, voted with your clicks. Here are the results: 5. Nathan Myrhvold: These Chemicals Are Good For You (And Yummy) Along with fellow ...