When we cease to understand the world
By: Benjamin Labatut ; translated by Adrian Nathan West
Contributors: West, Adrian Nathan, translator
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2021
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 189
ISBN-13: 9781681375670
Subjects: Translations into English; Scientists; Fiction
Work titles: Verdor terrible
Description: "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"--
Notes: Description based upon print version of record.
Table of contents: title: Prussian blue; title: Schwarzschild's singularity; title: The heart of the heart; title: When we cease to understand the world; title: The night gardener.