Search Results

Big Think’s Jason Gots reviews Garth Risk Hallberg’s novel City on Fire. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains what’s so completely mind-blowing about the great mind of Sir Isaac Newton.

Charges of treason are often used incorrectly in today’s political climate. Treason has a very specific definition in the U.S. Constitution.

The words we speak might actually help us see the future. Here’s how.

Allow me to paste a new label onto our country’s most-labelled demographic the Millennials: the food truck generation. 47 percent of Millennials have eaten from a food truck, making them the most likely patrons of those mobile establishments that their parents were more apt to refer to as “roach coaches” or “gut trucks.” Food trucks have been around in some form or another for most of the 20th century, but they were more culturally recognizable as fixtures of isolated workplaces like manufacturing plants and construction sites.  Today, food trucks are estimated to be a $2.7 billion industry and have been reappropriated into a younger, more affluent, more urban cultural ethos. The mass migration of Millennials into cities mirrors to some extent the proliferation of the food trucks on those same city street corners. With their DIY sensibility and appealing sort of grubbiness, food trucks cater to younger folks who have come to search for “authenticity” in their brands – or rather products that give the appearance of being “brandless”. So is it that the proclivities of these young hip urbanized eaters have spurred the rise of the gourmet-food-truck phenomenon? Or is there a larger force that has shaped both the landscape of the restaurant industry and Millennial tastes at once?   

Mongolia becomes the world’s first country to switch to the what3words system of addresses.

As mankind raises its eyes to Mars and asks, “How do we get there?”, we might need to ask, “Should we go?”. Carl Sagan said we may not be entitled to visit a potentially inhabited planet.

Languages the world over have words for love we all seem to understand.

That’s a big yes, as an incredible new study from University of Melbourne researchers found.

Are we living in a simulation? Theoretical physicist Brian Greene and Neil deGrasse Tyson walk us through the ideas, which might support this fantastic and unnerving concept. 

Big Think is proud to partner with the 92nd Street Y’s 7 Days of Genius Festival to bring you an in-depth look at the many qualities and characteristics of genius.

The study was conducted by Cambridge researchers.

Astrophysicist Michael J. I. Brown offers some guidelines for identifying fake or bad science.

And even with them all in place, what do we still not know? “The joy of life consists in the exercise of one’s energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of […]

For those who still don’t believe in global warming, the science has had it right for half a century now. “Greenhouse gases are the second most important factor for climate, after […]

A new study reveals that people naturally fall into 4 different personality types while making decisions: Optimist, Pessimist, Trusting, or Envious. 

Positive thinking all by itself is more destructive than helpful, but when combined with realism and strategy and planning, can be turned to good use.

Just because we know it’s real doesn’t mean it’s easy to create in a lab. “For me the best answer is not in words but in measurements.” –Elena Aprile Atoms, molecules, […]

Calculus was invented by Isaac Newton in the middle of the 17th century, so does a historically contingent event hold true everywhere in the universe, even near black holes? Bill Nye the Science Guy replies to a Big Think fan.

Could the Universe have been born completely uniform and still given rise to us? “First, you should check out my house. It’s, like, kinda lame, but way less lame than, like, […]

There’s a lot to learn about other worlds, but you can’t learn it all without looking up. “One should not need a teleportation device to decide whether a newly discovered object […]

Big Think’s Jason Gots reviews David McCullough’s 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography John Adams. 

It’s worth listening to this self-described “Cranky old man” named Henry Rollins.

Big Think is proud to partner with the 92nd Street Y’s 7 Days of Genius Festival to bring you an in-depth look at the many qualities and characteristics of genius.

Don’t believe every science study you read, because sometimes not even their authors believe them. Here are the issues corrupting good, honest science – and how to fix them. 

Scientists propose an unexpected location for extraterrestrial life. 

How sure are we that what we’re looking at is cosmic, rather than galactic? “Every philosophy also conceals a philosophy; every opinion is also a hideout, every word also a […]

The beloved honeybee has more in common with vertebrates that anyone thought.  

The surgeon general is pleading for a fundamental shift in how we think about addiction.

Anthony Scaramucci is no angel, but he does choose his words carefully. If you don’t evolve along with language, it can be catastrophic for businesses and team dynamics.