Big Ideas

The Big Ideas Series features innovative programs that inspire and captivate audiences while exploring some of the most complex of scientific questions, including our origins, our fundamental nature, and our place in the cosmos. The John Templeton Foundation is a founding benefactor of the Festival and provides major support for the Big Ideas series.

Quantum to the Cosmos: A Brief Tour of Everything

78,150 views |

Shedding Light on the Dark Universe

81,699 views |

James Webb Space Telescope: Comets, Planets, and the Origin of Life

104,017 views |

Gravitational Waves and the Dark Universe

85,942 views |

Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter and Meaning

130,078 views |

Revealing the Cosmos: A Startling New View From the James Webb Space Telescope

260,284 views |

The New Golden Age of Space Exploration

68,614 views |

MEMORY: The Hidden Pathways That Make Us Human

158,852 views |

Rewriting the Story of Humankind

191,060 views |

Brave New Prehistoric World

92,791 views |

Rewiring the Brain: The Promise and Perils of Neuroplasticity

360,141 views |

Visual Illusions: Catching the Brain Creating Reality

246,628 views |

The Deep: Exploring Earth’s Last Frontier

171,480 views |

To the Moon, Mars, and Beyond: The Next Step in Space Exploration

52,687 views |

The Dreaming Mind: Waking the Mysteries of Sleep

941,397 views |

Karen Armstrong: Sacred Nature – A Conversation with Brian Greene

64,123 views |

Psychedelics: Chemicals, Consciousness & Creativity

1,306,159 views |

First Images: James Webb Space Telescope’s New View of the Cosmos

265,561 views |

Black Holes: Seeing the Unseeable

606,891 views |

Riddles of Reality: From Quarks to The Cosmos

483,383 views |

Lifespan Expanded: The Scientific Quest for a Fountain of Youth

148,208 views |

Einstein and the Quantum: Entanglement and Emergence

2,110,167 views |

Science, Life, and Purpose: A Conversation with Francis Collins and Brian Greene

56,001 views |

The Future of Cosmology: A Live Conversation

152,280 views |

Things We’ve Never Seen: The James Webb Space Telescope Explores the Cosmos

2,817,252 views |

2021 Nobel Laureates in Conversation with Brian Greene

75,035 views |

Mind Your Language: Metaphor, Thought and Imagination

838,997 views |

Does Math Reveal Reality?

1,605,529 views | 01:36:02

On the Shoulders of Giants: Steven Weinberg and the Quest to Explain the World

127,501 views | 00:57:27

Beyond Higgs: The Wild Frontier of Particle Physics

1,257,515 views | 01:30:08

Making Room for Machines: Getting Ready for AGI

50,932 views | 01:27:46

We Will Be Martians

55,091 views | 01:25:38

Outsourcing Humanity: Do Algorithms Make Better Decisions Than People?

Rethinking Thinking: How Intelligent Are Other Animals?

1,487,705 views |

The Richness of Time

2,536,101 views | 01:29:37

Eyes In the Skies: Bringing the Universe Down to Earth

65,768 views | 01:24:01

The Technology That Transforms Us: From the Stone Age to the Computer Age

01:12:02

Intelligence Without Brains

1,242,243 views | 01:29:11

Physics in the Dark: Searching for the Universe’s Missing Matter

1,205,002 views | 0122:24

On the Shoulders of Giants: Shep Doeleman

69,324 views | 00:32:32

The Reality of Reality: A Tale of Five Senses

1,433,164 views | 1:11:33

On the Shoulders of Giants: Andrew Strominger

00:35:03

The Science of Extreme Behavior: The Line Between Courageous and Crazy

01:11:03

Can We ‘Cure’ Deafness and Blindness? Should We?

01:11:53

Revealing the Mind: The Promise of Psychedelics

5,091,696 views | 01:24:38

Loose Ends: String Theory and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory

2,398,096 views | 01:27:24

The Right Stuff: What It Takes to Boldly Go

01:20:43

The Believing Brain: Evolution, Neuroscience, and the Spiritual Instinct

3,829,690 views | 1:17:46

Alien Contact: What Happens Next?

1,462,311 views | 1:00:10

Rethinking the Internet: How We Lost Control and How to Take it Back

00:58:06

How Music Affects Your Brain: Notes on the Folds

00:52:42

Rewriting Life: The Promise and Peril of Editing Your DNA

00:48:20

Neutrinos, Matter, and Antimatter: The Yin Yang of the Big Bang

105,426 views | 00:57:28

Sylvia Earle: On the Shoulders of Giants

00:57:18

Harnessing the Power of Neuroplasticity: The Nuts and Bolts of Better Brains

1,531,992 views | 01:00:35

RESISTANCE IS (NOT) FUTILE: THE END OF ANTIBIOTICS AND THE FUTURE OF FIGHTING INFECTIONS

00:51:17

Teach Your Robots Well: Will Self-taught Robots Be the End of Us?

1,049,003 views | 01:02:39

Black Holes and Neutron Stars: A Merger in Space

83,497 views | 00:41:54

Is Alien ‘life’ Weirder Than We Imagine: Who Is Out There?

1,387,530 views | 00:59:56

Growing Up Digital: Coming of Age in a Virtual World

01:02:05

The Roots of Extremism in Your Brain

01:17:53

The Microbiome: Vital Cells of Existence

62,874 views | 01:06:47

The Matter Of Antimatter: Answering The Cosmic Riddle Of Existence

4,487,684 views | 01:39:21

Pondering the Imponderables: The Biggest Questions of Cosmology

727,722 views | 01:06:44

The Social Synapse: Neuroscience and the Roots of Human Connections

100,705 views | 01:07:13

Cartographers of the Brain: Mapping the Connectome

110,847 views | 01:33:49

Quantum Reality: Space, Time, and Entanglement

7,700,852 views | 1:32:48

Computational Creativity: AI and the Art of Ingenuity

00:58:53

Forever Young: The Promise of Human Regeneration

948,921 views | 01:02:40

The Future of Augmented Intelligence: If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Join ‘em

01:02:01

Engineering Immortality: the End of Aging?

55,653 views | 00:59:50

Quantum Computing – The Qubit Technology Revolution

104,038 views | 01:03:48

Science In A Polarized World: A Global Town Hall Meeting

01:00:35

Evolution Beyond Earth

58,374 views | 00:59:31

Shaking Up the Dark Universe: The Dark Horses of Dark Matter

547,479 views | 01:17:01

Testing the Limits of Cosmology

141,037 views | 00:57:13

Moral Math of Robots: Can Life and Death Decisions Be Coded?

58,950 views | 01:34:35

Beyond Beauty: The Predictive Power of Symmetry

467,512 views | 01:33:30

Splicing and Dicing DNA: Genome Engineering and the CRISPR Revolution

523,253 views | 01:24:26

To Unweave a Rainbow: Science and the Essence of Being Human

210,057 views | 01:38:53

It’s Alive, But Is It Life: Synthetic Biology and the Future of Creation

1,224,164 views | 01:27:13

Mind Melds and Brain Beams: The Dawn of Brain-to-Brain Communication

1,394,587 views | 01:25:32

My Neurons, My Self

476,577 views | 01:39:51

Wizards of Odds: The Power of Probability

515,301 views | 01:23:44

The Next Quantum Leap: Here, There, and Everywhere

161,673 views | 01:02:32

Planet of the Humans: The Leap to the Top

191,530 views | 01:19:33

Spark of Genius? Awakening a Better Brain

140,392 views | 01:21:33

To Infinity and Beyond: The Accelerating Universe

809,365 views | 01:22:23

Time Is of the Essence… or Is It?

1,185,072 views | 01:22:11

Mind Over Masters: The Question of Free Will

460,125 views | 01:23:39

Designer Genes: Fashioning our Biological Future

01:13:31

Alien Life: Will We Know It When We See It?

7,391,057 views | 01:33:30

The Deceptive Watchman: How Our Brains Twist Time

301,924 views | 01:23:57

Measure for Measure: Quantum Physics and Reality

3,762,674 views | 01:38:44

Infinity: The Science of Endless

1,628,700 views | 01:23:57

A Matter of Time

967,838 views | 01:27:52

Architects of the Mind: A Blueprint for the Human Brain

761,132 views | 01:28:48

Destiny and DNA: Our Pliable Genome

51,137 views | 01:24:33

The Whispering Mind: The Enduring Conundrum of Consciousness

779,972 views | 01:26:02

Engineering the Brain: Deploying a New Neural Toolkit

01:03:39

Multiverse: One Universe or Many?

3,438,146 views | 01:22:35

James Watson: On the Shoulders of Giants

01:08:08

The Elusive Neutrino and The Nature Of The Cosmos

446,256 views | 01:30:42

Why We Prevailed: Evolution and the Battle for Dominance

157,717 views | 01:31:59

Exoplanets: The Search for New Worlds

108,376 views | 01:24:28

Madness Redefined: Creativity, Intelligence and the Dark Side of the Mind

371,271 views | 01:35:31

Beautiful Minds: The Enigma of Genius

529,426 views | 01:30:32

The Illusion of Certainty: Risk, Probability, and Chance

689,578 views | 01:28:02

The Dark Side Of The Universe

1,149,622 views | 01:44:14

Mysteries of the Mathematical Universe

818,045 views | 01:16:48

A Thin Sheet of Reality: The Universe as a Hologram

2,976,826 views | 01:30:10

The Limits of Understanding

1,652,663 views | 01:33:00

Faith and Science

94,722 views | 01:41:19

Back to the Big Bang: Inside the Large Hadron Collider

367,960 views | 01:35:29

Food 2.0: Feeding a Hungry World

01:32:13

Mind and Machine: The Future of Thinking

272,910 views | 01:25:28

What It Means to Be Human: The Enigma of Altruism

01:18:33

NOTHING: The Subtle Science of Emptiness

1,025,731 views | 01:25:19

Infinite Worlds: A Journey through Parallel Universes

2,397,021 views | 01:43:58

Time Since Einstein

857,315 views | 01:36:21

What It Means to be Human

01:25:35

Science Faith and Religion

331,109 views | 01:46:12

Beyond Einstein: In Search of the Ultimate Explanation

239,444 views | 01:02:50

Echoes From The Beginning: A Journey Through Space And Time

164,905 views | 01:17:21

The Invisible Reality: The Wonderful Weirdness of the Quantum World

4,820,542 views | 01:30:56

Faith and Science

01:07:48

Big Data: Power, Potential, and Perils

01:30:23

This is Your Brain On Neuroprosthetics

01:30:01

Game Change – CRISPR’s Brave New World

01:25:42

Life in Our Image – The Ethics of Altering the Human Genome

01:27:38

Coming to Grips With Gravity

278,127 views | 01:25:57

My Society, My Self?

01:32:11

Paging Dr. Robot—How A.I. is Revolutionizing Healthcare

01:27:47

The Beauty of Balance

01:32:53

Barry Barish: On the Shoulders of Giants

01:08:05

E.O. Wilson : On The Shoulders of Giants

01:01:50

Steven Weinberg: On The Shoulders Of Giants

142,592 views | 01:02:03

Edward Witten : On the Shoulders of Giants

274,782 views | 00:48:49

Cumrun Vafa: On the Shoulders of Giants

00:55:43

Afterglow: Dispatches from the Birth of the Universe

292,019 views | 01:26:50

Live Discussion with Brian Greene

102,378 views |

Our Mathematical Universe: Brian Greene & Max Tegmark

307,130 views |

Cosmology and the Accelerating Universe | A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt

229,118 views |

What is Life? Five Great Ideas in Biology. | A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse

218,397 views |

Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality | A Conversation with Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek

714,859 views | 02:03:40

Entanglement, Black Holes, and Wormholes: An informal discussion with Brian Greene

227,054 views | 01:51:22

Brian Greene and Leonard Susskind: Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes and String Theory

1,256,771 views | 02:08:02

Brian Greene and Sir Roger Penrose: World Science U Q+A Session

1,281,516 views | 02:53:44

Brian Greene and Andrea Ghez: The Hunt for Supermassive Black Holes

127,252 views | 01:54:16

Brian Greene and Barry Barish: Accelerate, Collide, Detect: Gravitational Waves & Particle Physics

74,003 views | 02:06:58

Brian Greene and Harold Varmus: Tackling Today’s Medical Issues From Cancer to Covid-19

86,307 views | 02:19:44

Brian Greene and Priyamvada Natarajan: Shedding New Light On Dark Matter

222,659 views | 02:10:10

Brian Greene and Gabriela González: Discovering Gravitational Waves

216,004 views | 03:01:37

Brian Greene and Cumrun Vafa: World Science U Q+A Session

253,161 views | 02:33:02

Brian Greene and Adam Riess: World Science U Q+A Session

803,141 views | 03:05:19

Brian Greene: Time Dilation and the Slowing of Time

183,153 views | 01:45:24

Live Q&A with Brian Greene: How Can Supermassive Black Holes Grow so Quickly?

128,147 views |