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When We Cease to Understand the World

Benjamín Labatut,

Adrian Nathan West (Translator)

Start date: March 1, 2023

Finish date: May 31, 2023

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What Members Thought

Oct 12, 2023 gam s (Haveyouread.bkk) is currently reading it · review of another edition

This book was, in fact, the love of my life.
One of my contenders for a 2023 rereading project.

Update: Rereading this book hit me hard like a freight train. I feel like I've never read any books quite like this one before, and I wish people knew more about the existence of it. ...more

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Feb 10, 2023 Bucket rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, many-perspectives, philosophy, experimental, reviewed, bio-auto-bio, literary, world-lit, science, time

Fantastic, through and through. I love the philosophical balance of science and speculation, of fact and fiction. Labatut starts with pure facts, and moves further and further into fiction, until the titular chapter in the book where the name, contribution to physics and rough biographical details are all that is true. He imagines the breakdowns and mind-altering states that it might have taken for these physicists and mathematicians to evolve their thought paradigms to something so clearly outs ...more

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Jan 18, 2022 Kathleen (itpdx) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Oh my! Challenging the borders between fiction and nonfiction! Biographies of 20th century scientists (physicists and chemists), how their ideas emerged, their arguments and collaborations, some of the impacts of their discoveries. Such an interesting method of presenting a story.

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