Big Think

If you stand here on the surface of the Earth, whether at the north pole where the acceleration is greatest or at the summit of Huascarán where it’s the smallest, you’ll be pulled towards the center of the Earth with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s²: the acceleration due to gravity, or “1g” on the surface of the Earth. Sure, there are tiny variations that will ensue, as y...

Every marriage’s disintegration is marked by the same four warning signs that researchers John and Julie Gottman can spot before a couple even finishes their first sentence.

The founders of the Gottman Institute break down decades of lab research on why relationships collapse, and what to look for in a partner so they can make it 50 years by your side.

Three people are sitting on a bench: a wise man between two fools.

One fool is called “Pointless.” They argue that the universe is cold and uncaring to human needs. We can try as hard as we want and plan as long as we can, but at the end of the day, the world will have its way. A bullet, a disease, a speeding truck, a single sentence from a powerful person — they’ll ea...

When you look at the Sun, the light you’re seeing isn’t the light that’s being emitted right now. Instead, you’re seeing light that’s a little more than eight minutes old, since the Sun is some 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) away, and light — although it’s fast — can only travel through the Universe at a specific speed: the speed of light. But what about gravitatio...

In my decades of playing soccer, I’ve taken part in hundreds of games. I’ve played in games where we dominated and lost. I’ve played in games where we were awful yet somehow scraped through to win. I’ve played in games where the other team cheated the whole way through with time-wasting, shirt-pulling, hacking people down at the knees (picture Paraguay’s shithousery against F...