When We Cease to Understand the World

Benjamin Labatut

ISBN 10: 1782276149 / ISBN 13: 9781782276142

Editore: Pushkin Press, 2021

Benjamin Labatut, Pushkin Press. 'A monstrous and brilliant book' - Philip Pullman When We Cease to Understand the World shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain. Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger: these are among the luminaries into whose troubled minds 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, Benjamin Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to break open the stories of scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible. 'Ingenious, intricate and deeply disturbing. Labatut has written a dystopian nonfiction novel set not in the future but in the present' - John Banville 'Absolutely brilliant. I was utterly gripped and wolfed it down. It feels as if he had invented an entirely new genre' - Mark Haddon. Codice articolo 9781782276142-RETAIL

Riassunto:

When we cease to understand the world: Benjamin Labatut

Dalla quarta di copertina: Albert Einstein opens a letter sent to him from the Eastern Front of World War I. Inside, he finds the first exact solution to the equations of general relativity, unaware that it contains a monster that could destroy his life's work.

The great mathematician Alexander Grothendieck tunnels so deeply into abstraction that he tries to cut all ties with the world, terrified of the horror his discoveries might cause.

Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg battle over the soul of physics after creating two equivalent yet opposed versions of quantum mechanics. Their fight will tear the very fabric of reality, revealing a world stranger than they could have ever imagined.

Using extraordinary, epoch-defining moments from the history of science, Benjamín Labatut plunges us into exhilarating territory between fact and fiction, progress and destruction, genius and madness.

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: When We Cease to Understand the World
Casa editrice: Pushkin Press
Data di pubblicazione: 2021
Legatura: Paperback
Tipologia articolo: Paperback