"I'm still recovering from the mental leaps and bounds demanded by the first chapter of this ombre-text experiment, which begins as historical fact--the alchemist who discovered the chemical structure of the ethereal pigment know as "Prussian Blue" also made possible the later development of Zyklon B, used by the Nazis at Auschwitz--and then evolves into a narrative about the imagined inner lives of geniuses who shaped our present, for better and oftentimes for much worse."

--LG

____________

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.