The Latest from Big Think

Text reading "The Latest" in a large, serif font on a light background.
Book cover with the title “Kobuk the Destroyer” by Alex Davies, featuring a bear firing a cannon and a flying rabbit reminiscent of Jimmy Doolittle’s daring spirit, all set against a striking red background.
Jimmy Doolittle pushed aircraft to their limits and, in the process, helped turn flight testing from daredevilry into a discipline.
Raisin bread expanding Universe
The evidence that the Universe is expanding is overwhelming. But how? By stretching the existing space, or by creating new space itself?
Book cover for “Leadership Intelligence” by Caroline Webb, featuring the subtitle “Science-Backed Strategies for Mastering 21 Everyday Management Challenges” on a blue gradient background, highlighting essential leadership habits for success.
A wise leader must learn to widen their perspective and lighten their mental load.
time
We experience time as real. But what if it's only an illusion: an illusion that's inherently relative? Does time fundamentally even exist?
A distorted 3D globe shows exaggerated elevation and depression, with color gradients of orange, white, and blue representing different surface levels.
The Earth is neither flat nor round. Actually, it's somewhere between a potato and a billiard ball.
Book cover for “Agency: The Psychological History of Human Progress” by Martin Seligman, featuring geometric shapes on a beige background with black text, reflecting themes of self-efficacy and personal growth.
Decades of research show that self-efficacy can be strengthened with a few surprisingly simple strategies.
Three yellow silhouettes of people walk along upward-pointing arrows, symbolizing leadership development, on a black grid background filled with intersecting blue and white arrows.
5 steps to build a leadership development program that drives business impact
There's a speed limit to the Universe: the speed of light in a vacuum. But you can beat the speed of light. Just travel through a medium!
halo evolve cosmic time millennium II
Generations ago, cosmologists asserted that the Universe might not just be the same in all directions, but at all times. But is that true?
A composite image of the Milky Way galactic center shows orange gas clouds, purple radio bubbles, and green and blue background stars in space.
Today's Milky Way only forms stars slowly. Our galactic center, where the star-forming rate is highest, gives a unique window into our past.
proton internal structure
Every proton contains three quarks: two up and one down. But charm quarks, heavier than the proton itself, have been found inside. How?
Abstract image of vertical orange and beige lines distorted by horizontal ripples on a pale blue background.
When the road runs out, you've got to make your own way.
anti-gravity mirror
If you look into a mirror, you'll notice that left-and-right are reversed, but up-and-down is preserved. The reason isn't what you think.
Book cover with the title “What Happened to Liberal Democracy?” by Daron Acemoglu, featuring a gold sticker noting Acemoglu as a Nobel Prize recipient in Economic Sciences. The design hints at themes of collective knowledge that shape and challenge modern democracies.
Our collective knowledge has made us better off, but only when communities and social institutions adapt it for the common good.
time dilation
We live in a four-dimensional Universe, where matter and energy curve the fabric of spacetime. But time sure is different from space!
Infographic showing Apollo mission timelines, astronaut suits, and colored orbital paths around the Moon labeled with Apollo mission numbers, highlighting milestones in crewed spaceflight.
Big Think’s latest poster is a detailed look at humanity’s loftiest enterprise so far: making it off-planet.
baby universe
The inside of every black hole leads to the birth of a new Universe. Could our Universe have arisen from one?
Most of us have heard that the Sun is an ordinary, typical, unremarkable star. But science shows we're actually anything but average.
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?