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.
News of our latest interviews with experts
Archimedes in the bathtub, Newton and the apple, Einstein's theory of special relativity -- Eureka! moments are what happens when hours of work come together in a single creative flash. In his new blog for Big Think, Sam McNerney will be dissecting these moments of genius, asking what is the nature ...
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 collective – rather than personal and narcissistic – spiritual evolution in order to positively transform ...
We all know them: parents whose children run wild in public, allowed to behave in ways that make the rest of us cringe and calculate privately how we can avoid them until they're 25. (Though we probably won't like them then, either.) This is not, of course, the same thing as the parents whose ...
“Do you think we should get our brains scanned before getting married?” a friend asked me as we browsed a crowded department store, selecting important items for her bridal registry. At first I thought I must have misheard her. She threw the question out much in the way she might have asked how ...
Whatever your traditions, the holidays are a time to drink egg nog lattes, reconnect with friends and family, struggle gracefully to keep calm, and look back on all you achieved in 2011. Here at Big Think, we’ve been working hard to create and develop the Floating University, an e-learning ...
This week Big Think decided to give Twitter a big bear hug. Why? We realized the Twitosphere had (undeservedly) become the neglected stepchild of our various social media profiles. To date, we have accumulated nearly 30,000 followers, and appreciate the twaffic they help bring to Big Think. We've ...
Big Think is pleased to announce a new partnership with the Hudson Union Society, which we hope will be a mutually beneficial arrangement to help foster our shared goal of engaging the public with the thoughts, ideas and experiences of experts and distinguished luminaries. The Hudson Union ...
Are you a Big Thinker? Are you a Serial Thinker? Are you always the first person to offer your opinion? Then there's a good chance you're an Ice Breaker. You have probably noticed these badges appearing next to people's names in the comment section of all Big Think articles and videos. The ...
It's always exciting news for us at Big Think when one of our own has published a new book. Today we are excited to spread the word about Mark Seddon's book Standing for Something: Life in the Awkward Squad , which details Mark's role as a leading member of the so-called Awkward Squad, "a thorn in ...
What's the Big Idea? "My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for?" asked Virginia Woolf. The revolution in functional imaging has brought us closer than ever to answering ...
Mark Roeder is an ex-senior executive of UBS Bank and the author of The Big Mo: Why Momentum Rules Our World. In this guest post, he explores what recent discoveries in neurobiology can tell us about the causes of the financial crisis - and how to treat it. In March 2008, two researchers ...
As you have probably noticed, BigThink.com has undergone several cosmetic changes today, all intended to enhance your reading and viewing experience. We hope you like it, but we're not done yet. This visual refresh is the first step in a process that will unfold in the coming days, weeks and months ...
The eccentric magicians Penn and Teller used to come onstage naked at the beginning of performances, to demonstrate they didn't have any "tricks up their sleeves." And yet, Penn Jillette (the one who talks), who has published the recent book God No! Signs You May Already Be an Atheist and Other ...
What a wonderful surprise it is for us to find today that Time magazine has rated Big Think number 1 in News & Info in its list of The 50 Best websites of 2011. We are truly honored to be included in Time's list and we'd like to take this designation as an opportunity to thank all of Big Think's ...
In a previous post, we asked you who you want to see featured on video at Big Think. The response was overwhelming to say the least. From UAW President Bob King to Tesla Motor's CEO Elon Musk to former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, many of the people that you suggested were already on ...