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.
Science Evangelist
Science and stereotypes have been inextricably linked for centuries. Take the periodic table; it is nothing but a set of stereotypes of how atoms of elements behave. Some are more reactive than others and it all has to do with where they live on the table. Periodic table stereotypes are ...
In her recent TED Book, Save Our Science: How to Inspire a New Generation of Scientists, Ainissa Ramirez makes an impassioned call for a recommitment to improve science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education in our schools and throughout our society. The post below is an excerpt from ...
“Brutality in playing a game should awaken the heartiest and most plainly shown contempt for the player guilty of it," said President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905, a year in which 18 young men died playing high school and college football. The reform-minded Roosevelt's criticism led to sweeping ...
What's the Big Idea? The evolution of the football helmet is a cautionary tale of how inventions can cause new and potentially problematical human behaviors. Football helmets were initially designed to prevent skull fractures. Imagine that an eggshell is your skull and the yolk is your brain ...