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We are Big Idea Hunters…

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 Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.

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Earth and Beyond

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Earth and Beyond

Global Warming and Hurricane Sandy?

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7 months ago

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 ...

Earth and Beyond

84 Million Stars in 9 Billion Pixels

Eso1242a
7 months ago

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 ...

Earth and Beyond

Can Nanotechnology Create Utopia?

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7 months ago

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 ...

Earth and Beyond

DIY Drones: The Future is Now

Drone
9 months ago

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 ...

Earth and Beyond

What Put the Bang in the Big Bang?

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9 months ago

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 ...