The notion that genius and creativity are generated by or provoke a form of mental pathology is a very old idea dating to the time of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. It experienced a resurgence in the 19th and early 20th century (Robinson, Andrew. “Genius and Madness.” Genius: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2011). While contemporary research disputes this association as a scientific fact, it is explored here in a poetic, literary sense. The scientists in When We Cease to Understand the World demonstrate varying degrees of “madness,” ranging from eccentric behaviors to hallucinations and visions that inspire their work.

Many of the scientists are described as having unusual compulsions that revolve around an obsession with their work. As a child and young adult, Schwarzschild is so single-minded that he doodles astronomical equations in the margins of his school books and gets nerve damage in his hands from taking off his gloves to make notes in the freezing cold. As a student, Mochizuki spends days without food or sleep reading the work of Grothendieck, prompting “incoherent babbling” about the “heart of the heart” of mathematics (66). Both he and Grothendieck have a single-minded focus on their work as adults with few outside interests.