When We Cease To Understand The World

Author: Benjamin Labatut; Adrian Nathan West (translator)

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $29.99 AUD
  • : 9781782276128
  • : Pushkin Press
  • : Pushkin Press
  • :
  • :
  • : November 2019
  • : {"length"=>["21.6"], "width"=>["13.5"], "units"=>["Centimeters"]}
  • :
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  • : November 2021
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  • : books

Special Fields

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  • : Benjamin Labatut; Adrian Nathan West (translator)
  • : Hardback with dustjacket
  • : 2010
  • :
  • : English
  • : 863.7
  • : very good
  • :
  • : 192
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Barcode 9781782276128
9781782276128

Description

A fast-paced, mind-expanding literary work about scientific discovery, ethics and the unsettled distinction between genius and madness. 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.

Awards

Shortlisted International Booker Prize 2021