When we cease to understand the world (Benjamin Labatut)
Reading a science non-fiction novel for a change. Because such things exist apparently.
A bit like October which romanticize the October revolution but with 20th century theoretical physics and maths discoveries. And how random such discoveries happened.
The book is extremely well written but is kind of hard to describe. Yes, it includes biographies and the stories of discoveries but it also includes personnal chapters. It also goes into the protagonists psyche and not just their actions or publications.
And as well written (and translated) it is, it can be extremely hard to read at time given the topics it deals with. I mean, it opens with a string of suicide and continues with the shoah. And the whole chapter on Shrodinger… I had no idea the guy was a recidivist pedocriminal.
Final word
The book is hard to classify but I did learn a lot of things. Just be aware of the content warnings listed above.