Light&Fire Coming soon to the App StoreSoon · App Store

You pick a subject. You leave with three sources that genuinely exist.

A video to lay the groundwork, a podcast for the journey, a book to go all the way down. Light&Fire writes nothing: it goes out and finds, and it verifies. What follows is the app's real index of suggested subjects — two of them are laid out here in full. You can also type your own: the catalogue is a starting point, not a limit.

128 subjects 7 domains 3 steps per journey FR and EN

History

Empires, revolutions, key figures

  1. 001The fall of the Roman Empire
  2. 002The French Revolution
  3. 003The Silk Road
  4. 004The Ottoman Empire
  5. 005The building of the Great Wall of China
  6. 006The fall of the Berlin Wall
  7. 007The Byzantine Empire
  8. 008The slave trade and its abolition
  9. 009The Industrial Revolution
  10. 010The Age of Discovery
  11. 011Ancient Egypt and the pharaohs
  12. 012The First World War
  13. 013The Second World War
  14. 014The invention of the printing press
  15. 015The Crusades
  16. 016Genghis Khan's Mongol Empire
  17. 017The decolonisation of Africa
  18. 018Ancient Greece and democracy
Liberty Leading the People, painting by Eugène Delacroix: a woman raises the tricolour above the barricades.
Delacroix, 1830

Sciences

Physics, biology, mathematics

  1. 019Quantum physics
  2. 020Artificial intelligence
  3. 021The theory of evolution
  4. 022Einstein's general relativity
  5. 023The human genome
  6. 024Space exploration

    1. Step 1 — Getting Started · Video · 14 min

      Les trous noirs in French

      ScienceEtonnante — YouTube

      What a black hole is made of, where you find them, and why nothing comes back out. Enough to hold a serious conversation, in a quarter of an hour.

      Watch →

    2. Step 2 — Going Deeper · Podcast · 1 h 06

      Qu'y a-t-il au fond d'un trou noir ? in French

      300 milliards d'étoiles — Usbek & Rica

      Astrophysicist Alain Riazuelo takes the question past where the video stops: the singularity, the horizon, and the point at which physics runs out of things it can say.

      Listen →

    3. Step 3 — Mastering It · Book

      Les Trous noirs in French

      Jean-Pierre Luminet — De Vive Voix, 2001

      The French astrophysicist who produced the first simulated image of a black hole, in 1979 — forty years before the photograph of M87 alongside.

      Find the book →

    Three real sources, verified on 30 July 2026.

  8. 026Regenerative medicine
  9. 027CRISPR and gene editing
  10. 028The Big Bang
  11. 029Plate tectonics
  12. 030Vaccines and immunity
  13. 031The human brain
  14. 032The mathematics of infinity
  15. 033Materials science
  16. 034Quantum computing
  17. 035Antibiotics and resistance
  18. 036The science of sleep
The first image of a black hole: a ring of glowing orange matter around a circular black shadow.
M87*, Event Horizon Telescope, 2019
The first image of a black hole: a ring of glowing matter against a black field.

An image that took a hundred years to obtain. Thirty seconds to find.

Event Horizon Telescope — M87*, 10 April 2019

Art & Culture

Painting, film, music

  1. 037The Impressionist movement
  2. 038Jazz
  3. 039Street art
  4. 040The Italian Renaissance
  5. 041Silent cinema
  6. 042Surrealism
  7. 043Analog photography
  8. 044Italian opera
  9. 045Manga and Japanese animation
  10. 046The French New Wave
  11. 0471960s rock
  12. 048Gothic architecture
  13. 049Hip-hop
  14. 050Greek sculpture
  15. 051The 19th-century Russian novel
  16. 052The Bauhaus
  17. 053Baroque music
  18. 054Franco-Belgian comics
Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet: an orange sun over the port of Le Havre in blue haze.
Monet, 1872 — the painting that named the movement

Philosophy

Ideas, schools of thought

  2. 056Existentialism
  3. 057Confucius' philosophy
  4. 058Enlightenment philosophy
  5. 059Zen Buddhism
  6. 060Nietzsche's philosophy
  7. 061Taoism
  8. 062Machiavelli's political philosophy
  9. 063The ethics of artificial intelligence
  10. 064Plato's philosophy
  11. 065Aristotle's philosophy
  12. 066Epicureanism
  13. 067Descartes' philosophy
  14. 068Kant's philosophy
  15. 069Scepticism
  16. 070Spinoza's philosophy
  17. 071Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy
  18. 072Philosophy of language
Marble bust of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, curled beard, gaze lowered.
Marcus Aurelius — Heraklion museum
Detail of Liberty Leading the People: the armed crowd advances through the smoke of the barricades.

The learning does not happen here. It happens wherever you go next.

Eugène Delacroix — Liberty Leading the People, 1830

Economics

Markets, theories, major crises

  1. 073The 1929 crash
  2. 074Bitcoin
  3. 075Free trade
  4. 076Capitalism and its critics
  5. 077Globalization
  6. 078The circular economy
  7. 079Cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin
  8. 080Game theory
  9. 081Global inequality
  10. 082Inflation
  11. 083Central banks
  12. 084The 2008 financial crisis
  13. 085Universal basic income
  14. 086Labour economics
  15. 087Public debt
  16. 088The commodities trade
  17. 089Behavioural economics
  18. 090The history of money
Crowds massed outside the New York Stock Exchange during the crash of October 1929.
Wall Street, October 1929

Nature

Ecosystems, species, climate

  1. 091Coral reefs
  2. 092The Amazon rainforest
  3. 093Animal migration
  4. 094Volcanoes
  5. 095Marine biodiversity
  6. 096Climate change
  7. 097Bees and pollination
  8. 098Antarctica
  9. 099Endangered species
  10. 100The deep ocean
  11. 101Fungi and mycorrhizal networks
  12. 102Deserts
  13. 103The water cycle
  14. 104Boreal forests
  15. 105Photosynthesis
  16. 106Earthquakes
  17. 107The world's great rivers
  18. 108Soils and erosion
An outcrop of multicoloured coral and shoals of fish on the Great Barrier Reef.
Flynn Reef, Great Barrier Reef
An outcrop of multicoloured coral and shoals of fish on the Great Barrier Reef.

Seven domains. Not one is a module, not one has a syllabus.

Flynn Reef, Great Barrier Reef — photo Toby Hudson, CC BY-SA 3.0

Sports & Video Games

Competitions, records, gaming culture

  1. 109The history of the Olympic Games
  2. 110The Football World Cup
  3. 111The history of video games
  4. 112The rise of esports
  5. 113The most impressive sports records
  6. 114The history of tennis
  7. 115The Paralympic Games
  8. 116The indie video game industry
  9. 117Doping in sport
  10. 118Formula 1
  11. 119The Tour de France
  12. 120The history of boxing
  13. 121Basketball and the NBA
  14. 122Rugby
  15. 123Chess
  16. 124The marathon
  17. 125Elite swimming
  18. 126Speedrunning
  19. 127The history of Nintendo
  20. 128Tabletop role-playing games
An athletics event in the Panathenaic Stadium at the Athens Olympic Games, 1896.
Athens, 1896 — the first modern Games

Devil's Advocate

On a subject that divides, one podcast is not enough.

Economics, philosophy, society: when a subject is genuinely contested, the podcast step splits in two. Two episodes, two opposing arguments, and the call is yours. You do not leave with an opinion, you leave with what you need to form one.

What this mode will never do: fill the second slot with an off-topic episode just to look complete. If it finds no credible counter-argument, it says so. And if the subject is not divisive at all, it flatly refuses —

Devil's Advocate — on

Subject requested: Black holes

Versus

Devil's Advocate: this topic is factual rather than divisive — there is no serious opposing thesis to offer here.

The Daily Spark

The same subject for everyone, until midnight.

Every day, one spark: a subject drawn from the catalogue, the same for every user, changing at midnight. It is the product's standing appointment — not one more notification, a subject held in common.

The flame

One flame a day. A streak that forgives.

You keep your streak alive by finishing a journey — passed on a quiz or marked as done. One flame a day, no more. The streak survives a missed day and only goes out past two.

Flames buy flame colours in the shop. That is all they do. Nothing here punishes you for having a life.

What it costs

Free, and it refills every night.

The free journey count resets every day at midnight UTC. That is what gives the product its rhythm: come back tomorrow, there is room.

A Premium subscription at €4.99 a month is planned to lift that limit. It is not live yet — nothing is for sale today, and the app says so as plainly as this page does.

A hundred and twenty-eight subjects to start with. And every other one.

Light&Fire is in beta and is not downloadable yet. This page will be the first to carry the link.

Coming soon to the App Store — iOS first

One email, the day it launches. Nothing else, ever.