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When we cease to understand the world Cover Image

When we cease to understand the world / Benjamín Labatut ; translated from the Spanish by Adrian Nathan West.

Labatut, Benjamín, 1980- (author.). West, Adrian Nathan, (translator.).

Summary:

"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 Schrodinger: these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Labatut's book 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 to 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, Benjamin Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible."-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9781681375663
ISBN: 1681375664
Physical Description: 189 pages ; 22 cm
Publisher: New York : New York Review Books, [2021]
Copyright: ©2020

Content descriptions

General Note:	"First published in Spanish as Un verdor terrible by Anagrama. Translation first published in the United Kingdom by Pushkin Press in 2020"--Title page verso.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (page 189).
Formatted Contents Note:	Prussian blue -- Schwarzschild's singularity -- The heart of the heart -- When we cease to understand the world -- The night gardener.
Language Note:	In English, translated from the Spanish.