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Very often, the most creative things happen in the most implausible places, such as the creation of the first electronic digital computer at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.

Very often, the most creative things happen in the most implausible places, such as the creation of the first electronic digital computer at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. 

Creating an afterlife—or a simulation of one—would take vast amounts of energy. Some scientists think the best way to capture that energy is by building megastructures around stars.

Getting risk wrong leads to dangers all by itself, and we will remain vulnerable to these mistakes until we let go of our naïve post-Enlightenment faith in reason and accept that risk perception is inescapably an affective system, not just a matter of rationally figuring out the facts. 

Over at Edge.org, its impresario John Brockman poses an annual question to his assemblage of scientists, scholars, writers and other insightful people. This year’s (suggested by George Dyson), was this: […]

The quantity of knowledge contained by humanity increases by about five billion bits per second, yet our poor understanding of how information systems work could spell disaster. 

“People need to see something of a balance between effect and cause… that if something has a huge evil effect, it should be the result of a huge evil cause.”

From Earth and beyond, these time lapses show our one-of-a-kind motion through the Universe. “Building one space station for everyone was and is insane: we should have built a dozen.” […]

Big Think, the YouTube for intellectuals, is devoting the next 30 days to highlighting the most dangerous among ideas. Here’s how the editors describe the theme: Throughout the month of […]