August 3, 2013

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

What does this picture mean to you, on the occasion of the president’s 52nd birthday?

bigthinkeditor

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

What does this picture mean to you, on the occasion of the president’s 52nd birthday?

The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

A man in a black suit sits on a chair against a white backdrop, surrounded by several monarch butterflies on a bright blue background.

Your life is at the mercy of seemingly random tiny events

“It’s a true fact, but a bizarre one, that the reason why hundreds of thousands of people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than Kyoto and Kokura, is because of a 19-year-old vacation and a passing cloud.”

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01:36:26 min

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with

Brian Klaas

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: When do stars turn the most mass into energy?

All stars shine due to an internal source of energy. Usually, it’s nuclear fusion: converting mass into energy. What makes them most bright?

A vintage-style illustration of a celestial scene, echoing science fiction by scientists, features a textured black planet and a whimsical moon with an eye, all enclosed in a pale green border against a starry background.

Books

5 classic science fiction novels written by scientists

What happens when scientists “write what they know”? Some amazing science fiction stories.

Black and white photo of a young woman resting her chin on her hand, set against a green background with circular and brain patterns.

Thinking

Why Hannah Arendt left philosophy behind to face the world

Arendt thought 20th-century philosophy had become too passive and abstract. She called for “active thinking” that prepares us to live in the real world.

A collage with “The Nightcrawler” text, a grayscale photo of a tractor in a field, and a blue-tinted portrait of a man in a suit, layered on blue backgrounds with chart graphics that hint at long-term investing trends.

Business

The inner game of long-term investing

Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.

Up Next

You Can’t See the Children In This Video. Make Them Visible.

In the video below, Liam Neeson alerts us to the plight of children we can’t see.