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Elizabeth Kenny went against conventional methods for treating polio and believed a patient should have an active role in their recovery.

If a rising tide lifts all boats, why isn’t America — a nation of such wealth and resources — a more egalitarian country? Actor Wendell Pierce says we’ve lost the true spirit of capitalism.

Before Oprah or Martha Stewart, Berg built an empire around her name.

On the 500th anniversary of the death of Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch, his native Netherlands is letting the freak flags fly.

“Humans are allergic to change,” Grace Hopper once said. “They love to say, ‘We’ve always done it this way.’ I try to fight that. That’s why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.”

Ursula Nordstrom changed children’s literature. During her time as the editor-in-chief of juvenile books at Harper & Row, she helped nurture the talents of many authors, such as Shel Silverstein author of The Giving Tree and Maurice Sendak illustrator and author of Where the Wild Things Are.

If You Work in a Creative Industry, You Should Steal Other People’s Ideas Just as Shakespeare lifted plots from his predecessors, young performers today ought to focus on emulating those […]

Was Jackson Pollock more than just “Jack the Dripper”?

Today, it’s the most obvious thing in the world. But how do you prove it to yourself? “A long time ago people believed that the world is flat and the […]

In order to bring conflicting countries closer together mentally, experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats wants to bring them closer together physically. He proposes action that would speed up Earth’s tectonic activity and lead to the rapid formation of a new supercontinent.

Democracy is happening like never before, and it’s exploiting our deepest fears and failures.

Though perhaps not the most pressing, believe it or not.

Monty Python’s Terry Jones argues that economics isn’t a science—it’s history!  Forgetting that history inevitably dooms us to the next financial crisis.

It seems very odd now, but one of the greatest thinkers ever, believed that we could rely on the love of math and its beauty to make us better people. Here’s why Plato thought so…

Wanting to believe in the impossible can be far worse than keeping an open mind. “No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man […]

We surprise the world’s brightest minds with ideas they’re totally unprepared to discuss. This week on Big Think’s podcast, we’re joined by the legendary musician and spoken-word artist Henry Rollins.

His words give those of us with creative and depressive tendencies hope, perspective, and a sense of camaraderie.

Getting married by a priest or at a courthouse can feel underwhelming. Experimental philosopher Jonathon Keats wants to revolutionize the wedding by ditching the boring old officiants and replacing them with quantum physics.

Warhol may be dead, but Pop Art is not—it’s more international, relevant, and alive than ever.

How do you win a cyberwar against an Internet-savvy enemy like ISIS? One prominent researcher has suggested a troll-based battle strategy. That’s right: internet trolls. Could World War III be fought with memes?

Artists aren’t easy people to be around sometimes. Genius and jerk often walk hand in hand. They may suffer for their art, but those who support them often become collateral damage in the quest for immortality. Making a biopic of any artist and balancing the good with the bad seems an almost impossible task. Making a biopic of Pablo Picasso, a classic case study of the genius-as-jerk, that praises the painting while honestly assessing the collateral damage to women has never satisfactorily been filmed.  But where cinema fails, maybe the cinematic graphic novel can succeed.  The graphic novel Pablo, written by Julie Birmant and illustrated by Clément Oubrerie, is the best “film” ever made about one of the founding fathers of modern art — a portrait of intertwined genius and jerk that never loses sight of either side.

Freud was much more than the Id and Oedipus, and he may be the answer to today’s problems.

Biases and flaws are like foreheads — it’s easier to see others’ than your own. So our most cherished beliefs should be tested by rigorous bias-balancing processes. 

In our most recent discussion with Ray, he discusses the ability of natural language machines, such as IBM’s Jeopardy!-slaying computer named Watson, to overleap our own cognitive abilities. The result, he says, will be a computerized personal assistant to help us throughout the day.

“The mathematician’s best work is art, a high perfect art, as daring as the most secret dreams of imagination, clear and limpid. Mathematical genius and artistic genius touch one another.”

Donald Trump is the topic of our national conversation, and the reason for his popularity seems to revolve around his distaste for political correctness—but why do we love that? 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of “Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now,” argues that Mohammed was a creative genius who, upon his death, froze innovation in Islam forever.

Neuroscientist Joy Hirsch chats with The New York Times columnist Carl Zimmer about searching within the brain for where “genius” resides.

As part of Big Think’s partnership with 92Y’s Seven Days of Genius series, New York Times columnist Carl Zimmer asks Heather Berlin about the research that illuminates our understanding of genius.

Leading a team of experts to reach creative heights may be the mark of today’s genius.