When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut

This book had a lot of critical acclaim, including being on the Booker International book shortlist and amongst the New York Times best books of 2021, but it is an oddity, somewhere between a journal review article and a musing on the the state of the universe. I think the title refers to the uncertainty that Einstein brought to the table in the early 20th century and then Heisenberg cemented with the uncertainty principle, which Einstein at first refused to believe was possibly correct and then came to at least agree he couldn't find evidence that it wasn't correct. Why? Well, while god may not play dice with the world, as Albert Einstein famously declared, the author might retort: perhaps not – but the devil does. In fact, Einstein himself had a lifelong niggle of doubt about mathematics, the discipline that we suppose keeps the Lord away from the gaming tables. How is it, he wondered, that an intellectual tool invented by humans can comprehend, account for and even manipulate so much of objective reality? That the physical world should be amenable to something we made up seemed to him suspect. THe book fairly clearly and very patiently takes the reader through the amazing physical science of the last 100 plus years, and then leaves us to contemplate where in fact that leaves us. It is an unsettling and yet enjoyable read.