When We Cease To Understand The World (P

I have rarely come across such intense writing style like this one. It often got me absorbed in thoughts. I would have to gather myself after every chapter(or the story of each individual discussed) in the book. Amazing! Thank you! 🙏

This is an enthralling fact based fiction on the lives and theories of great physicists and mathematicians. It is not a chronological account, the author takes you back and forth. It is very interestingly written, difficult to put down. A non-science reader will miss some technical aspects but still enjoy the agonies and ecstasies;the madness; the struggle and triumphs of the scientists. At times the author gets a bit carried away with his fiction. Do read if you like these types of subjects.

The book doesn't need an introduction. The author has done a great deal of artistry in putting, in words the lives' works of some of the dynamic changing personalities.

A gripping read

Enjoyed this. A fictionalized romp through the eccentricities of genius; it's often weird and beautiful, but you have the sense that it's true inspiration lies in convincing you that it's never quite as weird as the truths these minds pursue.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF THE BOOK GETS SOMEWHAT FUZZY AMIDST MUCH AVOIDABLE INFORMATION. HOWEVER, THE READERS GET AN INISIGHT VIEW OF MINDS OF MANY SCIENTIFIC PRODIGIES

The book is divided into 5 chapters. The first two chapters, Prussian Blue and Schwarzschild's Singularity, are amazingly good and fast reads. A lot of information unknown to me is given in these chapters. The rest of the book has a slower tempo. The author gives a fictional account of the mental and physical state of scientists on the verge of great discoveries. The book certainly does not fit in any category of any book that I have read. I would recommend the book for a curious reader.

How do you draw the line where genius ends and insanity begins? Is it on the warfield where you scribble a solution to warp space-time and don’t see a bomb hurled in your direction? Is it when you’re caught trying to burn a mentor’s work to honour his dying wish to rid the world of his research? Or is it when three months into a mental breakdown, you sit impeccably groomed and ask your brother in a tone as placid as though you’re asking for a spoon of sugar, “I need you to tell me if I’ve lost my mind”?Much like Schrodinger and the simultaneously half-alive, half-dead cat, this book escapes the confines of a genre, until you pick a particular line to question. A running theme is the coexistence of duality. Life and Death. Genius and Eccentricity. Control and Chaos. And a who’s who of scientific juggernauts who occupy the spectrum within - Fritz, Einstein, Schwarzschild, de Broglie, Grothendieck, Schrodinger, Heisenberg. Would gladly recommend this book.

Labatut, B. (2020). When we cease to understand the world (A. N. West, Trans.). New York Review Books.Benjamin Labatut is a writer who was born in the Netherlands and currently lives in Chile.This is a strangely wonderful "work of fiction based on real events" exploring the lives of scientists, physicists, and mathematicians who through their questions, exploration, and focus began to contemplate the consequences and implications of that which they created. The narrative provides a fictionalized account of Herman Goring, Johann Jacob Diesback, Johann Conrad Dippel, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Fritz Haber, Karl Schwarzschild, Shinichi Mochizuki, Alexander Grothendieck, Erwin Schrodinger, Werner Karl Heisenberg, Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond, 7th duc de Broglie, Niels Bohr, and Albert Einstein. In the midst of their creativity, these creators experienced ill-health, madness, guilt, and regret. The final chapter is written through the eyes of the narrator who listens to his night gardener, a mathematician, who concluded, "that it was mathematics - not nuclear weapons, computers, biological warfare or our climate Armageddon - which was changing our world to the point where, in a couple of decades at most, we would simply not be able to grasp what being human really meant."This book explores the lives of those who explore the sciences, physics, and mathematics. Their outputs often raise questions about potential and even unintended consequences. The writing combines research, history, and speculative fiction. For those interested in the moral and ethical questions raised by the film Oppenheimer, this book would be a wonderful book for contemplation.

Absolutely unique and gripping. I read it in one very long day as I could not put it down. The science is authoritative and beautifully described, all surrounded by a partly fictional account of the personalities and geniuses who actually developed it. Superb. I’ll definitely re-read this wonderful book.

The book itself is good quality and handy. I like that it's not so heavy so I can carry on my bag anywhere

A very interesting book about the mind of sceintists providing also an historical context to it.

Indefinable by genre, vastly detailed and brilliantly written history mixed with fiction. It recalls WF Sebald, DM Thomas, and other masters of style. Those who know the history of quantum physics will love the drama. Others who fear the promethean rise of technology in modern times will find echoes of our premonitions of catastrophe. The final image of the lemon tree is poignant.