When We Cease to Understand the World - Benjamín Labatut & Adrian Nathan West

When We Cease to Understand the World

By Benjamín Labatut & Adrian Nathan West

  • Release Date: 2021-09-28
  • Genre: Fiction & Literature
4 Score: 4 (From 177 Ratings)

Description

One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2021

Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize and the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature

A fictional examination of the lives of real-life scientists and thinkers whose discoveries resulted in moral consequences beyond their imagining.


When We Cease to Understand the World is a book about the complicated links between scientific and mathematical discovery, madness, and destruction. 

Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity. Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear.

At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.

Reviews

  • Not that great

    2
    By mr sterling
    Once I found out that part of this book is fiction I wondered what the heck did I just read. Weird sexual fantasies about young girls and bizarre drug trips. The NYT recommended this book. I say it’s quasi pornographic. It may have some truths but who knows what those are.
  • Ignore the bad reviews

    5
    By Anon-y-mouse
    You either get it or you don’t. If you’re the type who normally gets it, you will. If not, you probably won’t.

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