With the advent of new science, an amazing opportunity has opened up to accurately predict what will happen in the future in various areas of life. Big data is our growing ability to process huge amounts of information, instantly analyze it and sometimes get completely unexpected conclusions. What paint color can be used to judge that a used car is in excellent condition? How do New York City officials identify the most dangerous hatches before they explode? And how did Google's search engine predict the spread of the H1N1 flu outbreak? The key to answering these and many other questions lies in big data, which will fundamentally change the way we think about business, health, politics, education and innovation in the coming years.