Latest Articles

Latest Articles

The newest essays, interviews, and features from Big Think.

Our Big Bang could be just one region within an infinite, inflating multiverse. If we were born close to the cosmic edge, what would we see?
1hr 24mins
Author Daniel Coyle breaks down the common traits shared by successful people, and why environment, not innate ability, is the variable that ties them all together.
Large telescope inside an observatory dome, showing metal structure, supporting beams, and curved reflective surfaces under artificial lighting.
In 2025, two cleverly designed studies claimed to find evidence of strange objects orbiting Earth — years before humanity had put anything in space.
A vintage-style portrait of a man with long hair, with a large green apple and leaves digitally placed over his face.
"Publish or perish" has become an academic cliché. But the biggest casualty isn't researchers — it's scientific discovery itself.
John Templeton Foundation
double slit experiments with electrons send one at a time
The double-slit experiment, hundreds of years after it was first performed, still holds the key mystery at the heart of quantum physics.
blue sky
The sky and oceans are both blue. It's not because one reflects the other. Science explains them both, but for very different reasons.
A man sits on a chair in front of a white backdrop, surrounded by large, digitally added orange ants on a green background.
42mins
Purpose is not only a question of meaning. For philosopher Alan Love, it is also a question of life, agency, function, and scientific method.
A man in a red shirt gestures with his hands. The text “MOND vs. Dark Matter” is displayed over a starry black background.
There are two rival ideas to try to make sense of the Universe: dark matter or modified gravity. Can a new cosmic test settle the issue?
Two galaxies collide in deep space, creating bright star clusters and glowing gas clouds against a dark, star-filled background.
The newest find recovers the earliest merger in galactic history: just 2 billion years after the Big Bang. Here’s what we know today.
Abstract illustration of two large white eyes with purple pupils and a blue mask-like shape between them, set against a black background with curved lavender shapes below.
Short fiction is powerful because of its constraints. By compressing language and time, it achieves a singular intensity the novel cannot.
A pile of layered, multicolored paper slips with printed text and a single red paperclip holding one slip at the top center.
In an age of information overload, reliable sources are easy to access but often difficult to identify.
A woman with long braids gestures while speaking, seated among three people illustrated as green silhouettes on a mixed-media background.
Charisma isn’t a fixed trait reserved for a lucky few — it’s a set of learnable behaviors.
A close-up view of a textured surface with a mottled pattern in shades of brownish-purple, evoking the appearance of uneven expansion and hinting at the mysteries of cosmic fate.
Recent evidence could indicate the Universe doesn't expand evenly. Does that change our expected fate: Big Rip, Big Crunch, or Heat Death?
A person in a green shirt sits on a chair in front of a white backdrop, with geometric drawings and diagrams on a yellow background behind them.
1hr 23mins
Members
Terence Tao breaks math down to six essential ideas: numbers, algebra, geometry, probability, analysis, and dynamics.
oldest trees
1859's Carrington event gave us a preview of how catastrophic the Sun could be for humanity. But it could get even worse than we imagined.
An older man and woman sit apart on chairs, separated by a large torn pink heart on a dark background, suggesting relationship issues.
1hr 1mins
Every marriage’s disintegration is marked by the same four warning signs that researchers John and Julie Gottman can spot before a couple finishes their first sentence.
A man in a suit holds his hands up while facing a silhouetted person against a light green background.
It's both easier and more beneficial than you may think.
Time isn't the same for everyone, even on Earth. Flying around the world gave Einstein the ultimate test. No one is immune from relativity.
A middle-aged man with a shaved head and trimmed beard, wearing a light blue button-down shirt, looks directly at the camera against a plain light background.
8mins
Science used to be broad because so few people could afford to do it. Now that more people can participate, the structures need to evolve too. Philosopher Alan Love explains.
Diagram showing the cosmic microwave background with cartoon probes at various angles, illustrating signal analysis—such as cosmic birefringence—over time from 0.37 million to 1.38 billion years after the Big Bang, revealing intriguing aspects of cosmology.
We assume there's no preferred frame of reference in the Universe, and that light behaves the same in all directions. What if we're wrong?