When We Cease to Understand the World

When We Cease to Understand the World

Fiction & Poetry, Modern & Contemporary Fiction
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Paperback Published on: 06/05/2021
£9.99
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Bookseller Reviews

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When We Cease to Understand the World
You have to remember its a work of fiction
Imagining of scientific breakthroughs and the characters that are involved through ,Einstein,Schrodinger and others.Focus is put upon each of them and it r... READ MORE
Neil Challis @Windsor
When We Cease to Understand the World
Astonishing and surprisingly readable
Reading the blurb had me thinking this could be too dense and indecipherable but in reading the book I found myself fascinated, engaged and often enjoying ... READ MORE
Dave Kedward

Synopsis

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021

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 Schroedinger 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, Benjamin Labatut plunges us into exhilarating territory between fact and fiction, progress and destruction, genius and madness.

  • Publisher: Pushkin Press
  • ISBN: 9781782276142
  • Number of pages: 192
  • Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm

Customer Reviews

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When We Cease to Understand the World
Brilliant, but has a blind spot
The previous review written here is very comprehensive about the book's plot, so I won't elaborate with further description here. The book, in this exquisi... READ MORE
Elia Cugini
When We Cease to Understand the World
A simply outstanding novel
This book was longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize, one of two books by Pushkin Press – who publish “the world’s best stories, to be read and... READ MORE
Graham Fulcher