The Big Think Interview

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Intimate interviews with the world's biggest thinkers.
Latest episode
The solar revolution turning sunlight into synthetic fuel
“10 years ago, my colleagues and I looked at the prognosis for climate change, and it looked pretty hopeless. There really was no way out. But something happened – something good.”

Casey Handmer

A detailed orange image of the Sun shows its surface texture and sunspots, against a black background.
A man sitting in a chair.
25mins
"I continue to believe that in the long run, boys, young men will believe their eyes more than their ears."
A man with glasses and a gray beard stands in front of illustrations of three classical columns, each with a different capital style.
22mins
"It's much better to try to understand how the world works and then act accordingly. Rather than trying to impose on the world the way we want to think or the way we preferred things to be."
Illustration of a human head made of cracked material with bandages, set against a cloudy sky background.
25mins
"The big question then is why are most people resilient and why are some people not resilient?"
An older man sits on a chair in front of a white backdrop in a modern, brightly lit room with colorful pillows and minimalist decor.
16mins
"Being connected to another person makes us feel safer and keeps our bodies at a kind of physiologic equilibrium that promotes health."
A person in a red sweater sits on a stool in front of a white backdrop in a bright room with plants, a colorful rug, and a table with a lamp.
7mins
Members
“The problem with cognitive scripts is when we use them to make more important decisions in our lives, we let our choices be driven by those stories that we have internalized that tell us how we're supposed to behave in a certain situation.”
An older man with long white hair wearing a dark pinstriped suit, white shirt, and red tie, looking directly at the camera against a plain light background.
11mins
Members
“The next revolution will be quantum computers that will make the digital computer look like an abacus.”
Green decorative geometric shape with the text "Rewriting the Rules of Life" written in black serif font across the center on a light green background.
15mins
“Until very recently, I thought I would die with the same genome that I was born with.”
A man in a suit with half of his face and head illustrated as mechanical gears and machinery, blending human and robot features.
8mins
“I've started to think about three puzzles we need to solve for as we bring these technologies into our organizations.”
A weathered metal sign reading "PROGRESS" with an arrow stands in a barren desert landscape under a blue sky.
13mins
“People got skeptical, fearful, doubtful of the very idea of progress in the 20th century and we allowed that to slow down progress itself.”
A silhouette of a person climbing up the edge of a steep cliff against a beige background.
8mins
“The purpose of a coach is to not be the one to set the goals, but instead to say, "Here are the kinds of goals we can work our way through.””
A petri dish with a red agar medium shows various colonies of bacteria growing, with dense streaks on the right and scattered colonies on the left.
13mins
“Chance invents and natural selection propagates that chance invention.”
A timeline diagram showing portraits of various scientists, documents, and equations connected by arrows, illustrating the historical development of quantum mechanics.
16mins
“The messy reality of it is that all of these very smart people, including Isaac Newton, were talking to other people.”
A black and white soccer ball floats on the surface of the ocean under a partly cloudy sky.
10mins
“When you start to accept that you have profound influence on the world, but very limited control, you start to see the world differently.”
A close up of a hand.
13mins
“Over the last 10 or 15 years, scientists have really started to understand the fundamental underlying biology of the aging process. And they broke this down into 12 hallmarks of aging.”
A rat stands on a concrete floor, casting a shadow on the wall that resembles the shape of a sheep.
9mins
“There would be something very, very empty and meaningless about [a] sort of life with no problems.”
A person stands alone on calm water with the word "STILLNESS" in bold letters over the scene.
21mins
“The idea is that we move from a place of wanting the world to conform to what we like [towards] not needing other people to be different from who they are.”
A middle-aged man with glasses and long hair stands indoors, wearing a floral-patterned shirt. The background is softly blurred with kitchen and living room elements visible.
15mins
"We're living in an extraordinary moment in history. We are at a moment here in 2025 where we have world historic game-changing technologies now starting to scale."
24mins
“Deep down the natural endpoint of this whole goal of looking for planets is to answer the question: are we alone?”
Black and white cutout of a smiling man's face with red heart shapes drawn over his eyes on a black background.
16mins
“No matter what their gods were, what they did for a living, what they wore, the songs they sang, everything varies except love, and everybody loves.”
9mins
“The universe clicks along in perfect accord with the laws of physics forever.”