When We Cease to Understand the World
Ratings66
Average rating4.1
15
Ratings66
Average rating4.1
SELECTED FOR BARACK OBAMA’S SUMMER READING LIST ‘A monstrous and brilliant book’ Philip Pullman ‘Wholly mesmerising and revelatory... Completely fascinating’ William Boyd Sometimes discovery brings destruction When We Cease to Understand the World shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger: these are among the luminaries into whose troubled lives we are thrust as they grapple with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, they alienate friends and lovers, they descend into isolated states of madness. Some of their discoveries revolutionise our world for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear. With breakneck pace and wondrous detail, Benjamín Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to break open the stories of scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.
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Reviews with the most likes.
A (partly) fictional retelling of how some real-world mathematicians and scientists came across their discoveries which reshaped or otherwise shed light on concepts foundational to humanity.
Still not sure how I feel about this book - while well written, I often got fixated on figuring out what was truth and what was dramatized or outright fiction. If you can look past that easily, this would be an excellent read.
4 звезды только потому что мужчина пишет про других мужчин, но очень и очень неплохой
This is darker than I thought it would be. The book started very strong but when we get to the chapter named ‘When we cease to understand the world' the semi-biographies fizzled out as methodical and the same formulaic all over. These parts also annoyed me because the author acknowledged that the % of fiction progresses as we get more into the book so IDK if he had made up the existential crisis and having sex with anybody and having erotic dreams about random people common for many of the quantum mechanics pioneers
I was also not satisfied that he didn't mention any of the female scientists associated with ww1 and ww2 eras.
Now if I consider all of these opinions then I have to say that other than the unsavoury part in the middle it was very interesting. Although I am not a fan of fast-paced work the transition was smooth so I will not consider this as folly.
3.5 stars out of 5, I thought I would like it much more than this
I didn't fully understand the mathematical and scientific concepts in the book, but you don't really need to. It's the scientist's descent into madness, obsession, and destruction that's really gripping. It also really helped that the last chapter really tied everything together.
