Guest Thinkers — February 22, 2011

The most brilliant thinkers in the world

The May 2008 issue of Portfolio magazine (“the brilliant issue”) has a listing of the 73 most brilliant thinkers in business – the rebels, upstarts, game changers and connectors who are changing the way we think about business. There are some familiar names, of course – Steven Spielberg, Rupert Murdoch & Lloyd Blankfein – but also a number of people you may not have heard of, like Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey of 23andMe. (Actually, come to think of it, you may have heard of Anne Wojcicki – she’s the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin!)

[image: Portfolio’s “Brilliant Issue”]

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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Innovation and the Simple Life

As John Maeda points out in his bestselling book The Laws of Simplicity, companies can unlock a tremendous amount of innovation by embracing the principles of simplicity.