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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Big ideas in little doses
Julian Assange had a lot of time on his hands while being holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. So the Wikileaks founder did what he does best: he prepared classified material for release. "With nothing to do but work on WikiLeaks material," as his mother put it, Assange spent his time ...
Today's date is 4/5/2013--all different digits. When was the last time this happened?
The movement to legalize marijuana hit a major milestone yesterday. According to a Pew Research Poll, for the first time a majority of the American public favors legalizing marijuana. Pew's report notes that while support has ebbed and flowed over the course of past decades, public opinion has ...
"For anyone who has ever written a book on technology," the science writer Melba Kurman tells Big Think, "one of the biggest struggles is 12 months after you start." You may have finished your book, but by then it’s already a little bit passé. Kurman, the co-author, along with Hod Lipson, of ...
Music, the Dionysian art form, plays a unique role in establishing one's identity and sense of self-empowerment. And music is particularly significant in the life and career of the Los Angeles artist Cindy Bernard. Bernard tells us that "as a visual artist who often references sound and music ...
What's the Big Idea? The images in art, writes the neuropsychiatrist Eric Kandel, "like all images, represent not so much reality as the viewer's perceptions, imaginations, expectations, and knowledge of other images--images recalled from memory." In this sense, the creative process of the ...
We spend 80 million hours a day watching videos on YouTube, and we would certainly like to have a few of those hours back. That is, of course, if we are using YouTube purely as a distraction, as opposed to a powerful way to share ideas. "The reason online video is so significant is that it is ...
"Human identity resides in our Brain," Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted a few months ago, "so the executioner's call 'Off with your head!' should really be 'Off with your body!'" It was a typical tweet by Tyson, who regularly offers acerbic scientific commentary on current events, popular culture and ...
Supreme Court watchers -- and that should include all of us this week -- are in for a thrilling and nerve-racking ride. The highest court is hearing arguments about the legality of both California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage and the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). These cases ...
It takes a lot to make the affable Penn Jillette dislike you. Consider Glenn Beck. "He's a nut. I mean, he's a deep, deep nut," Jillette told Big Think in a previous interview. Nonetheless, while Beck might say things Jillette finds reprehensible, "he's not trying to kill people," the speaking ...
"As a creative person I’ve always wanted to surround myself with inspiring things," says Shepard Fairey, the artist and designer who is best known for his Obey Giant campaign and Obama Hope poster. "So I’ve collected books," Fairey says, and "wandered around the street and photographed hand-painted ...
A funny thing happened one day at an ancient Greek bath. The mathematician Archimedes realized he could measure an object's density by comparing its weight to the volume of water it displaced. So what did he do? He ran home naked screaming "Eureka!" or "I have found it!" Ever since this event ...
If you're a tennis fan, and a fan of Rafa Nadal in particular, the last seven months probably felt like the period in rock n' roll history in which Elvis was in the Army. The past month, however, has seen Nadal successfully return from a left knee injury, an injury he is still nursing. In fact ...
Here's the best idea you'll hear today that you will also wish you thought of yourself. Just as Internet users contribute their 'cognitive surplus' to build sites like Wikipedia, international travelers can donate their excess luggage allotment as part of a novel delivery system to move millions of ...
What's the Big Idea? Nanobots, the Mars Rover, dark matter, and artificial intelligence – subjects we often cover on Big Think – are all brain candy for curious minds fascinated by scientific discovery and the far reaches of human knowledge. But human health presents one of the most massive and ...