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When We Cease to Understand the World
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
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When We Cease to Understand the World
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Summary
Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize.
A Guardian Fiction Book of the year.
Sometimes discovery brings destruction.
When We Cease to Understand the World shows us great minds striking out into dangerous, uncharted terrain.
Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger: 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, Benjamín Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to break open the stories of scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.
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Critic reviews
A monstrous and brilliant book.
-- Philip Pullman
Wholly mesmerising and revelatory... Completely fascinating.
-- William Boyd
What listeners say about When We Cease to Understand the World
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 18-08-23
Curious
I've found this book enjoyable and informative, the author's style resembles one of W.G Sebald.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Angus Jenkinson
- 26-07-24
Gripping tale of revolutionary science through the souls off scientists
The fiction is highly factual with imaginative license. It takes the detail of the science and what is known about the personalities to give both a critique and a contagion of 20th century genius.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Mooncoin
- 10-03-22
Rambling and unfocused
Is this one book or four? All the real life stories are fascinating but it feels to me that the author had nothing really to say so padded it all out with what I’d call novelistic drivel. I’m guessing he wrote this under contractual obligation.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- C.J. de Jong
- 22-10-23
Scientists, brilliant AND crazy at the same time?
Taking a peek in the lives of brilliant scientists, their problems like bad health (tuberculosis), lack of money and lack of support, and still go on working! This book is a source of inspiration!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Matthew
- 07-10-24
A different perspective
I really enjoyed this book - it's full of the kind of facts & details, that help to paint a far more colorful & human picture of the various subjects, of which this it is about. It did lose me a bit towards the end, but really great book overall, and very well narrated..
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- JP_transactor
- 24-02-23
Innovative and interesting
Unique subject matter. Very interestingly told. Took me so while to get it but once I did I loved it.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- humidake
- 02-03-22
heading is optional but it's not
this fiction, package from fact, should be outline so readers know what is real and what is made up. it's enjoyable to read but so is eating junk food
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- S. Peacock
- 28-05-24
Biographical fiction... why?
Had this book been described to me as short biographies of several scientists then I would not have bought it; had it been described as biographical fiction I would definitely not have bought it; had it been described as biographical fiction with a strange obsession with the character's sexual predilections and habits then I would have run for the hills.
The book starts off with a fast-paced ride through some quirky if fairly well-known stories from the history of science - Fritz Haber, Alan Turing, etc., but there's nothing new here and the stories are mostly skipped through in a hurry.
The second half of the book is a heavily fictionalised biography of some physicists and mathematicians - primarily Schrödinger and Heisenberg. There's very little discussion of their maths and science with the focus being primarily on fictionalised accounts of their person lives - I'm left wondering why, what possible interest does this have for anyone? Their real biography would leave me cold; a fictional biography just seems pointless.
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