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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Hurricane Sandy's the hurricane from hell. It broke all records. It was the storm of the century. It is the hurricane we will tell our grandkids about. But can it happen again? This depends on the science behind the storm. Hurricane Sandy was unusual because it involved the collision of three air ...
Every week, Dr. Michio Kaku will be answering reader questions about physics and futuristic science. If you have a question for Dr. Kaku, just post it in the comments section below and check back on Wednesdays to see if he answers it. This week Dr. Kaku addresses the question of the fate of the ...
Just as there were many countries -- India, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, to name a few -- not mentioned in the "foreign policy" presidential debate last week, perhaps the greatest challenge facing the world -- climate change -- was another unmentionable topic, receiving lip service not once in all ...
Here is the Milky Way Galaxy as you have never seen it before. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has just released a zoomable image representing the central concentration of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy that, if printed in full resolution, would be nearly 30 feet wide and over 20 feet tall ...
Every week, Dr. Michio Kaku will be answering reader questions about physics and futuristic science. If you have a question for Dr. Kaku, just post it in the comments section below and check back on Wednesdays to see if he answers it. This week Dr. Kaku addresses the question of the possibility ...
200 years ago today, Napoleon's army fought the Russians in the Battle of Maloyaroslavets, one of the bloody battles that followed Napoleon's evacuation of Moscow. While this battle may have been a French victory, it turned out to be a major strategic setback, as the Russians were able to block ...
Every week, Dr. Michio Kaku will be answering reader questions about physics and futuristic science. If you have a question for Dr. Kaku, just post it in the comments section below and check back on Wednesdays to see if he answers it. This week Dr. Kaku addresses the question of the possibility ...
Congratulations to Drs. S. Haroche and D. Wineland for winning the Nobel Prize in Physics. (It may be too early for Peter Higgs to win the Nobel Prize for the Higgs boson. Maybe next year). These two physicists got the Prize for doing experiments once thought to be impossible, i.e. studying ...
Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon is a real spaceship. Han can take off at a moment’s notice and escape from pursuers into space. And when he reaches his destination he simply flies right down through the planet’s atmosphere and can land on almost any patch of ground. After a quick refueling he can do ...
Every week, Dr. Michio Kaku will be answering reader questions about physics and futuristic science. If you have a question for Dr. Kaku, just post it in the comments section below and check back on Wednesdays to see if he answers it. This week Dr. Kaku addresses the question of Collective ...
50 years ago today, President John F. Kennedy delivered his famous speech at Rice University challenging America to send a man to the moon within a decade. If Kennedy were alive today, he would probably be amazed at the audacity of a new project that is light years more ambitious: DARPA's 100-Year ...
What's the Big Idea? "Hacking the physical" is how Dale Dougherty described the burgeoning DIY Drone movement to Peter Daimandis in his book Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think . Dougherty, the founder and publisher of Make magazine, was describing the broad trend that has enabled ...
Every week, Dr. Michio Kaku will be answering reader questions about physics and futuristic science. If you have a question for Dr. Kaku, just post it in the comments section below and check back on Wednesdays to see if he answers it. Today, Dr. Kaku addresses the question of what comes next ...
A dollar doesn’t equal a dollar; a rover doesn’t equal a rover. What does that mean? Well, let’s just put it this way: While NASA has done an exceptional job of placing a rover on the fourth rock from the sun, I, for one, cannot be muzzled any longer. Most people celebrate the technological ...
What is the meaning of infinity? How can the Higgs boson be explained in a way that is clear and accessible? The answers to these questions and many others can be found in five videos that theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku says you cannot afford to miss. This list also includes Dr. Kaku's ...