Filed in the following archives
Translated from the Spanish
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut 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 for 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, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.
When We Cease to Understand the World is remarkable in its inventive energy. Benjamín Labatut, ably translated by Adrian Nathan West, takes familiar historical facts and makes of them a powerful springboard. The result is thrilling: a brilliant rumination on the sometimes bittersweet nature of intellectual achievement. This important work seeks understanding through demystification; how it succeeds is engrossing.