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.
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Big ideas in little doses
In the spirit of maintaining an open mind, and in an attempt to purge myself of past prejudices, I will be re-reading The Great Gatsby this weekend. After all, this is the perfect time of year to read Gatsby, as Big Think blogger Andrea Chalupa pointed out in this recent tribute, noting that ...
The legacy of the Victorian era - the time defined by Queen Victoria's reign from 1837 until her death in 1901 - is a mixed bag. It gave us Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, unprecedented advances in science and engineering, the musical theatre of Gilbert and Sullivan, the poetry of Robert ...
Last month President Obama launched the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative to enable scientists to create a dynamic picture of brain function. As Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, writes on BRAINfeedback.nih.gov ...
"There is an electricity transmitted between a performer and a live audience," says Los Angeles performance artist, Dawn Kasper. "The exchange between the performer and the audience is powerful, intimate and specific." That is distinctly different from the act of making a video in the privacy of ...
"None of my videos have any common tie to them," says Brooke Candy, a rapper who has offered her picks of YouTube as part of an original MOCAtv series called "YouTube Curated By." "It's all pretty erratic, like myself," she says. Indeed, Candy's picks are quirky and eccentric and speak to both ...
Psychology can be humbling, and being humbled can be a great gift. It can even be fun, exhilarating. That was the impression I had after reading David McRaney's marvelous book that now holds a commanding presence atop my shelf, You Are Not So Smart. McRaney offers succinct explanations and ...
Stonewall Jackson, the legendary Confederate commander, was killed by friendly fire at the moment of his greatest triumph. As darkness set in following Jackson's flanking attack on the Union Army at the Battle of Chancellorsville, a North Carolina regiment mistook the general for the enemy, calling ...
We know that diversity on corporate boards is good for business and good for the world, so what steps can we take to boost women’s representation on boards worldwide? A roadmap was unveiled at the third annual WomenCorporateDirectors (WCD) Global Institute that is being held this week in New ...
In yesterday's lesson, astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson advised parents to buy their children binoculars, and then get out of the way, if they want to instill a sense of curiosity. But it normally doesn't happen that way. Curiosity means spilling things, breaking things. In some cases, it ...
What does it mean to think like Shakespeare? The poet and playwright was much more than just a clever wordsmith. Shakespeare has long been admired for his deeply sympathetic identification with all things human. The psychological portraits Shakespeare painted, with a masterful touch of ...
The Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch imagined a world with no religion in his iconic painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights," depicted above (click here for high resolution image). The central panel of the triptych shows "how humanity would be without a fall, living in paradise without knowledge of ...
What if Angus Young had 78 fingers? He'd have better job security, for one thing, since this robot can match the AC/DC guitarist lick for lick. Fingers is the name of this robot, who was built from recycled scrap metal and has enough robotic digits to cover the entire fretboard. Along with Bones ...
The world of neuroscience is abuzz with the news that a new technique has been developed to study brain anatomy in mice. By removing the brain and treating it with chemicals, researchers are able to obtain a transparent view. This advance was made by the bioengineering lab of Dr. Karl ...
Skip Arnold tends to put his body in strange places, often while naked, and often in great discomfort. For instance, the naked man strapped to the hood of an eighteen-wheeler driving along a freeway -- that was Skip. The naked man-as-welcome-mat at the entrance to Art Basel in 2002 -- that was Skip ...
"When I told my uncle who is a doctor that I’m speaking at TEDMED," says the artist Raghava KK, his uncle was dumbfounded. "Has the profession suffered some cardiovascular attack?" he asked. Not at all, Raghava replied. "Art and science are not that different." After all, they both tend to ...