Very unique book which transitions from captivating VSauce-esque nonfiction to devil-went-down-to-Gugenheim fiction. I think I preferred the first half (nonfiction) to the latter half, but the rhetorical effect was executed subtlely enough to not be disruptive to the "educational" portions, while still being entertaining and somewhat overt about the message that Labatut was trying to superimpose over the vignettes.

It's about the evolution of science from the (non-fiction-like) age of reason and Newtonian physics to (fiction-like) quantum mechanics. It is stories of individual scientists who become obsessed with their work (non-fiction), make world changing discoveries, and then go crazy (descend into mental fiction).

The sequence from the first part (Prussian blue and Carl Wilhelm Scheele) to part II about Karl Schwarzschild who died of pemphigus, likely acquired on the Russian front in WWI due to exposure to the very cyanide described in part I, was poetic.

As the scientist histiographied become increasingly disillusioned with the products of their discoveries and are driven mad, further fictitious apparitions or anecdotes appear on the pages. Heisenberg in the bar was straight up Aesop, and I ceased to care quite as much because the connections being drawn were no longer zany since they were just, at some point, made up. Don't think the book is anti-scientific progression per se as much as Great Man Theory adjacent commentary on the Oppenheimer "o god what have i done" realization stacked on top of the 20th century. P cool.

related