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.
Big Think’s Edge learning platform for career mentorship and professional development provides engaging and actionable courses delivered by the people who are shaping our future.
Big ideas in the news from around the web
Police in Pakistan are investigating a possible link between the killing of a leading Al-Qaeda militant last week and a bomb attack yesterday in Punjab which killed more than 20 people. “The attack took place in Dera Ghazi Khan, a large city in southern Punjab, near the home of a provincial minister ...
Hundreds of protesters angered by the lack of progress on a climate deal amid political wrangling are marching on the UN climate summit today in Copenhagen. “Activists have been angered by the lack of progress on a new climate deal, and with logistical problems at the summit. Talks are deadlocked ...
A boom in the demand for illegal motorbikes in Gaza is fuelling a dangerous smuggling trade orchestrated via complex tunnels all the way from Egypt. “Bikes are dismantled in Egypt and transported through the tunnels in pieces, in view of Egyptian border guards and Israeli drones, to be reassembled ...
“George W Bush is clearly enjoying himself. Alone on the stage, mic in hand, he tells a story about a moment earlier this year when he was walking his dog, Barney, around the Dallas suburb he now calls home. ‘I wanted to say hello to my neighbours,’ says Bush, ‘because I was worried we'd ...
Displeased Indonesians have been venting via Facebook outraged that a statue of a young Obama, “who is not an Indonesian national hero”, has been installed in a Jakarta park. “The Facebook group named ‘Take Down the Barack Obama Statue in Taman Menteng Park’ had attracted more than 10,000 members by ...
Some of the terrorism suspects being held at the U.S naval base Guantanimo Bay in Cuba will be transferred to Illinois state prison, a government official has said. “The critical step toward fulfilling President Obama's pledge to shut the Guantanamo detention center will be announced Tuesday, said ...
“Black carbon, the soot emitted when fuels like diesel, wood and coal are burned, may have a bigger impact on climate in some areas than greenhouse gases. New research presented here at the American Geophysical Union meeting shows that the 20 percent decrease in the extent of Himalayan glaciers ...
Australians are outraged at government plans to censor the internet after trials found that filtering a blacklist of banned sites didn’t slow the web down. “But critics, including the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam, said ...
“Google has sparked mystery by launching an unexplained countdown that only appears when users press the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button on the search engine's homepage. The feature, which usually takes users directly to the top result for their query, has been programmed to display a ticker when no ...
An ice-making kit which urges drinkers to recreate the sinking of Titanic using ice cube replicas of the ship and surrounding icebergs has been branded “sick” by consumers. “A cube-making kit called Gin and Titonic jokes: ‘Sink another round!’ Historian Brian Ticehurst said: ‘They are distasteful ...
Thousands have been evacuated from the areas surrounding the Mayon volcano in the Philippines after it began oozing lava and shooting plumes of ash. “State volcanologists raised the alert level on the cone-shaped, 8,070-foot (2,460-meter) Mayon volcano overnight to two steps below a major eruption ...
Iran may have tested a key component of atomic bombs as recently as 2007 according to diplomats – a claim that undermines Iran’s insistence its nuclear development is civilian. “The diplomats commented on a Times of London report about what it called a confidential Iranian technical document ...
Graphic novel “Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth” is surprisingly fun, despite the book’s subject being analytical philosophy’s search for the foundations of mathematics. The Salon reviewer Laura Miller remarks: “What ‘Logicomix’ niftily demonstrates is how well the graphic novel form is suited ...
“It used to be that computer viruses attacked only your hard drive. Now they attack your dignity. Malicious programs are rampaging through Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, spreading themselves by taking over people’s accounts and sending out messages to all of their friends and followers. The ...
Last night the world’s most prolific “annual cosmic fireworks show” twinkled across the night sky with the peak of the Geminid meteor shower. Just a month after the Leonid meteor shower peaked, last night’s display showed as many as 140 shooting stars every hour. “Favoring observers in the Northern ...