When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamin Labatut

When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamin Labatut

Spanish Book translated to English, Five Chapters on the whole – Started as fact lister detailing facts,  anecdotes  and happenings entwining each other – one leading to another – braced with the risk of creating  fatigue of astonishing  and unbelievable facts, book took a spectacular turn towards imaginative literary flourish. Later part of the book reimagines breath-taking encounters of Great minds of Twentieth century with Truth or revelation and in this conscious turn lies the literary value of the book.

Prussian Blue – Starting as a thread trailing Cyanide s invention and its varied encounters with Humanity across centuries this chapter rests its weight on Germany during World wars. A Nation with swelling pride produced many a fierce individuals – this chapter devotes its time on Haber & Hitler. Haber- Founder of Nitrogen helped in leapfrogging  fertiliser production thereby saving millions from hunger also designed gas attacks during  World War 1  which killed many soldiers in cruel fashion. Haber also helped in his endeavour to produce more Fumigants and pesticides to protect fields and granaries invented  Zyklon D, gas that killed the Jewish prisoners. Haber s guilt surprisingly is not Zyklon but Nitrogen as he felt guilty of disturbing the equilibrium of nature by producing Nitrogen in Large Quantities. Hitler - Fighting in trenches during world war 1 , a Shy man partially affected by gas attacks carried the lost wounded pride of Germany to write a manual which he would use later in his life to leapfrog to highest position of the country. Such is the pride that loss in World war 2 meant he can no longer live – an anecdote in the book tells us about a planned concert attended by German Elite arranged during final phases of war- impending enemy troops - to end their lives by popping Cyanide pills midst chamber music

From the macro narrative of the first chapter  book took a subtle turn towards individual  inquisitiveness s in Schwarzschild s Singularity – a account of life of Karl Schwarzschild , astronomer, Physicist and Mathematician – Chapter begins with Schwarzschild serving  as lieutenant in German Army sends his first exact solution of equations of general relativity to Einstein, Chapter goes on to list the unsatiable genius and inquisitiveness ending with how decades later Scientific community accepts Schwarzschild s Singularity in general terms called the Black Hole

Heart of the Heart – Opens with Latest finding on Living Mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki leads us into the eccentric and unbelievable life of Mathematician Alexander Grothendieck – Grothendieck in his initial part of his life as a master of abstraction was always looking for “Heart of the Heart”, concept located at the centre of Mathematical Universe. When he turned 40 and afterwards his life took a topsy turvy turns too real to be imagined – In this Chapter Literary gambit of the book subtly changes from Individual inquisitiveness to Grand Big Truth or Universal Understanding  of Scheme of Things – Grothendieck s foray into seclusion , his daily memoirs and his turn to commune Life calls for Further reading into Many other books about this Mathematical Genius and breath-taking personality.

“When We Cease to Understand the world” – Best Chapter of the book – Encounters of the great scientific minds becomes more personal- Imaginatively retold based on available anecdotes and Memoirs – In this chapter we leap into a question of can universe be definitely comprehended understood and modelled – We witness the Classic battle of Bohr vs Einstein ( Einstein quipped “God does not play Dice with Universe” ) in side-lines of two moving separate encounters of Heisenberg and Schrodinger with the Universe. Heisenberg in secluded island of North Germany wrote  an epiphany which turned out to be first paper on Quantum mechanics and his challenges to Schrodinger resulted in Further revelation in Streets of Copenhagen to arrive at his pinnacle work of “ Uncertainty Principle” – Schrodinger similarly had a revelatory experience in Sanatorium to complete his Wave Function. Reading these chapters we get a glimpse of Exciting Unsatiated Energetic lives they lived.

The Night Gardner – Provides glimpse of how seeds of this book is sown with few anecdotes and presents itself an open question have we ceased to understand the world ? How much wonder is left to be ascertained ? How much Uncertain is Our Lives ?

 

Pushkin Press , Translated by Adrian Nathan West