The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality
Decide its fate
The record
Time
An eveningA season368 pages, about 7 hours: the length of 1.1 typical books on the shelf.
Getting in
Walk right inSteep climbIn 1927, Charles Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic as Heisenberg works on quantum theory in Copenhagen.
One of a kind
Others do thisNothing else doesPhilosophy Now names Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World, on the shelf at 192 pages, among recent books on Heisenberg.
The case for it
on the quantum physics
“most lucid and enjoyable introductions to the dizzying world of twentieth century physics”
Leonid Bilmes · Philosophy Now, 2024 on the life stories
“The book’s complex ideas are interspersed with memorable anecdotes about its subjects’ personal lives”
Kevin Canfield · World Literature Today, 2024 on Einstein versus Heisenberg
“Egginton captures the tension of the back and forth confrontation between Einstein and his allies”
Walter Cummins · California Review of Books, 2023 on the supporting cast
“The likes of Zeno, Boethius, and Leibniz all crop up, though never needlessly”
Colm McKenna · The Irish Times, 2024
The case against
on the biographical passages
“these passages, although lucid and well written, arrived as unwelcome distractions”
Meghan O’Gieblyn · The New York Review of Books, 2024 on the Kant portrait
“flawed by the apparent assumption of the brilliance of all Kant’s words”
Martin Cohen · The Philosopher, 2023 on the physics sections
“parts of the book, particularly the deeply scientific, were beyond me”
a book blog on the quantum parallel
“I always have mixed feelings about this particular connection to quantum mechanics”
Sean Carroll · Mindscape podcast, 2023
