Big Think

4 days ago | bigthink.com | Ethan Siegel

Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all. It might seem hard to fathom, but it hasn’t even been ten full years since advanced LIGO, the gravitational wave observatories that brought us our very first successful direct detection, turned on for the very first time. In the time since, it’s been joined by the Virgo and KAGRA detectors, and humanity is currently closing in on 300 confirmed gravitational wave detection events.

4 days ago | bigthink.com | Jonny Thomson

A place to pause and reflect on life’s bigger questions, with Big Think’s Jonny Thomson. This article was first published on Big Think in April 2022. It was updated in May 2025. People sometimes look down on fantasy — not the prize-winning, metaphorical magical realism kind, but the kind of fantasy that has swords, sorcery, and dragons. It is generally accepted that children can enjoy made-up worlds, magical beasts, and dark lords.

5 days ago | bigthink.com | Ethan Siegel

Travel the universe with Dr. Ethan Siegel as he answers the biggest questions of all. Our Universe, as we understood it, underwent a radical change at the end of the 20th century. We had long assumed — consistent with the evidence we had, mind you — that our Universe was taking part in a great cosmic race that began back at the start of the hot Big Bang.

6 days ago | bigthink.com | Aldo Cazzullo

A dedicated space for exploring the books and ideas that shape our world. The English, like the Romans and Russians, once thought they were the descendants of the Trojans. In his Historia Regum Britanniae (The History of the Kings of Britain), Geoffrey of Monmouth recounts the story of Brutus, son of Iulus (therefore grandson of Aeneas), who was banished from Alba Longa because a soothsayer had prophesied that he would kill his father and mother.

1 week ago | bigthink.com | Jonny Thomson

A place to pause and reflect on life’s bigger questions, with Big Think’s Jonny Thomson. We are taught how to see. When a healthy child is born, their eyes go about things with genetic efficiency: blinking and blurry, but functional. A new world of color, shape, and depth overwhelms the eyes that have only ever been closed. These eyes are cameras on the world. They take a snapshot of whatever they’re offered and send it on to the brain. And this is where the real seeing happens.