When We Cease to Understand the World

Paperback, 192 pages

Published Sept. 28, 2021 by New York Review Books.

ISBN:
978-1-68137-566-3
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (23 reviews)

A fast-paced, mind-expanding literary work about scientific discovery, ethics and the unsettled distinction between genius and madness.

Albert Einstein opens a letter sent to him from the Eastern Front of World War I. Inside, he finds the first exact solution to the equations of general relativity, unaware that it contains a monster that could destroy his life's work.

The great mathematician Alexander Grothendieck tunnels so deeply into abstraction that he tries to cut all ties with the world, terrified of the horror his discoveries might cause.

Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg battle over the soul of physics after creating two equivalent yet opposed versions of quantum mechanics. Their fight will tear the very fabric of reality, revealing a world stranger than they could have ever imagined.

Using extraordinary, epoch-defining moments from the history of science, Benjamín Labatut plunges us into exhilarating territory between fact and fiction, progress and destruction, genius …

5 editions

An astounding trip through history and the unknown

4 stars

An exceptionally difficult book to rate and review; so much so, I've left it a month before making any comment. I'm not normally much for historical realism in my fiction, but the first story in this often bizarre collection, Prussian Blue, pulled me in hard, and I had to devour it in one satisfying gulp.

Labatut takes historical figures (chiefly from the sciences, with physicists and mathematicians at the forefront), and twists them into often grotesque tales, peppered with fiction and his own invention. The whole book has an addictive and propulsive quality (hence my need to fire through the first story in one sitting), reeling from event to event without hardly catching a breath. Where and with whom one story starts, is in no way guaranteed to end in the same place and with the same person; in a way history itself is the main character here. As Labatut …

Review on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I have mixed feelings about too much fictionalizing recent real people, but at the same time, I'm overwhelmed by how Labatut interweaves historical facts and imagination. It is horrifying to sense the duality that genius scientific discoveries possibly bring to unexpected destruction. It's hard to decide what genre this book fits into (hybrid of non-fiction, essay, and fiction, maybe?)

Review of 'When We Cease to Understand the World' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

What a terrific read! It is a classic theme: the push and pull between opposites (creation and destruction; madness and civilization), but Labutut has breathed new life into the familiar and crafted a fantastic blend of fiction and non-fiction to progress his way through the development of his thinking. I've been recommending this non-stop since I started it. One of those books that certainly stays with you long after reading. My guess is this has to do with the nearly anatomical precision with which Labutut splays his characters' vulnerabilities, and perhaps our own proximity to horror on a massive scale.

avatar for cocolaco

rated it

2 stars
avatar for jparise

rated it

4 stars
avatar for pollito

rated it

4 stars
avatar for MarianneBrix

rated it

5 stars
avatar for sidmitra

rated it

5 stars
avatar for dmbuchmann

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Shtakser

rated it

5 stars
avatar for johnnycastrup

rated it

4 stars
avatar for vilhelmr

rated it

5 stars
avatar for cjhubbs

rated it

5 stars
avatar for ChrisIkin

rated it

4 stars
avatar for Grigor

rated it

5 stars
avatar for boogah

rated it

5 stars
avatar for stochita

rated it

5 stars
avatar for billybooknews

rated it

4 stars