invalid author ID: Quando deixamos de entender o mundo (Paperback, Portuguese language, Todavia)
Paperback
Portuguese language
Published by Todavia.
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 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.
The creative madness of genius scientists. Evolves from fact through to terrifying fabulation, without straying from the essence. Strikingly original.
BookReview #Books #BookWyrm
A little over my head but still thought-provoking.
-1 star because women are missing in this tale about science.
Really enjoyed the first few chapters, but as it gets weirder (mixes more fiction into the telling, which becomes a fever ridden dream towards the end) - I felt more and more disconnected from the theme. It is a fantabulous work - merging fiction and history together in something that transcends both. The book's core exploration - "how our minds break down as we approach the unknown" is very fertile ground for ideas, imagery, and storytelling. But it equates paradigm changes in science to "moments of epiphany" far too often. It is however, a work of fiction, and it works well for the theme, it just doesn't work for me.
A lot of people have mentioned that this is a very approachable book, even for non-physicists. I agree, but would also add that for anyone who studied quantum physics …
-1 star because women are missing in this tale about science.
Really enjoyed the first few chapters, but as it gets weirder (mixes more fiction into the telling, which becomes a fever ridden dream towards the end) - I felt more and more disconnected from the theme. It is a fantabulous work - merging fiction and history together in something that transcends both. The book's core exploration - "how our minds break down as we approach the unknown" is very fertile ground for ideas, imagery, and storytelling. But it equates paradigm changes in science to "moments of epiphany" far too often. It is however, a work of fiction, and it works well for the theme, it just doesn't work for me.
A lot of people have mentioned that this is a very approachable book, even for non-physicists. I agree, but would also add that for anyone who studied quantum physics even at an undergraduate level will likely find the explanations very hollow of actual meaning. There are vague analogies and metaphors, which are good approximations, but very often elevate straight-forward approaches to epiphanies.
I really enjoyed the first chapter, which I read with no recollection or idea of what the book was about. Only after reading it did I find the whole "mixes fiction with history" aspect - still curious what the "one fictional paragraph" in the first chapter is. Might do a reread to find that. Current guess is the cannon ball explosion.
