guest book review: The MANIAC
by my favorite person on planet Earth: my husband, Martin Madriaga
In my vows on our wedding day, I mentioned that I’m always surprised and impressed by my husband’s many varied interests. From every possible thing there is to know about sports (not exaggerating), to the 3-volume Teddy Roosevelt biography he frequently revisits, to the most random-yet-legendary assortment of Blu-Ray discs proudly displayed in his office, to the Bravo universe, fashion podcasts, and think pieces about geopolitics, he consumes a lot and somehow always has a super intelligent, pithy, enlightening point of view on it all. Today, I have the great pleasure of sharing this POV with you.
Without further ado, here is Martin’s review of The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut.
I haven’t written anything in a while, but I read this book two weeks ago and all of a sudden, my typing fingers started working again. When I finished, I went to the founder of curled up (who is also my wife), and said “Shelby, it’s time for me to write a book review.”
The MANIAC is the English-language debut of Benjamín Labatut, a Chilean author born in the Netherlands. And it is fantastic.
It’s a book about John von Neumann, the smartest man of the 20th century. Yes, more than Einstein. He’s responsible for all of the fun things our society has to wrestle with today: nuclear war, game theory, personal computing, and artificial intelligence. Haven’t heard of him? Neither had I. But it might have to do with the fact that he was something of a scientific mercenary, more than willing to sell his gifts to the highest bidder, and usually that bidder was the U.S. military. It’d be like if Good Will Hunting ended up working for the NSA instead of going to see about a girl.
The work is written in the style of fiction, but the material is nonfiction. But to call it historical fiction is underselling it a bit. I’d say it’s an example of the McCann motto of “truth well told.” In this case, I’d take it a step further and label it “truth artfully told.”
Labatut uses an oral history device to chronicle von Neumann’s life. The reverence, jealousy, and passion coming from the words of some of history’s greatest scientific minds help to illuminate the brilliance of a man I had never heard of. And unsurprisingly, as all “great men” stories seem to go, we come to realize he was a genius, not a saint.
In many ways, it’s the literary cousin of the 2023 summer blockbuster Oppenheimer - although Labatut claims to have never seen the movie, and has no plans to see it.
Side note: If you’re wondering who played John von Neumann in the movie, you’re not alone. He wasn’t featured in the movie at all - despite being a prominent member of Los Alamos and instrumental to the science behind the bombs. My guess is that having a character of von Neumann’s stature would undercut the importance of the title character. Anyways.
Along the way, the book takes us through the scientific advancements of the 20th century, ponders whether the advancement of science is the advancement of humanity, and connects our present day AI predicament with a 2,500 year old Chinese board game. The prose is poetic and the story is grand - it’s the best book I’ve read in a long time.
But the real reason I wanted to write about this book was because it made me want to dive deeper into physics, science, and the quantum world.
I’m a liberal arts guy. In college, I walked into an organic chemistry class, walked out, and called my parents to say that I wasn’t going to be a doctor. But good art makes you see a subject differently, and The MANIAC showed me the beauty in science. There are so many concepts in physics and quantum mechanics that relate to the provocations that art grapples with today - science just uses a different type of canvas.
In many ways, a great theorem or paper is as soulful and artful as a great painting or novel.
Here are some examples from the book that illustrate what I’m talking about. And if you happen to be a quantum physicist, and I get something wrong, take it up with my editor:
“I believe we can postulate within any consistent formal system, a statement that is true but that can never be proven within the rules of said system” - Kurt Godel, 1931
At the time, the holy grail in science was the pursuit of a system that could explain the entire universe mathematically & scientifically. The belief was that everything could be proven with an equation. Godel was a logician, and this single statement disproved all of that.
He pretty much said: “Well actually, not everything can be proven, because you can’t prove the sentence ‘everything can be proven,’ so you’re wrong.”
Naturally, my mind went to - I guess there might be a God.
“...when the mass density of this central body exceeds a particular limit, it triggers a gravitational collapse” - Karl Schwarzchild, 1915
This one might be more familiar: black holes. Too much energy in one place leads to too much density in that place, and a black hole forms - nothing can escape it, and it destroys everything near it.
This made me think of two things.
First, the great irony of many of the world’s greatest minds is that they become obsessed with the problems they are working to solve, to the point where they literally go mad. It happens all the time. If you go on X (formerly known as Twitter), you will find many examples.
Second, black hole theory made me think of the value of democracy, freedom of ideas, and diversity of thought - too many people thinking the same thing at the same time can cause a society to collapse.
“Cavemen created the gods…I see no reason why we shouldn’t do the same."
“Progress will become incomprehensibly rapid and complicated. Technological power as such is always an ambivalent achievement, and science is neutral all through, providing only means of control applicable to any purpose, and indifferent to all. It is not the particularly perverse destructiveness of one specific invention that creates danger. The danger is intrinsic. For progress there is no cure.”
This is less science, and more something a scientist said. I think these quotes were made up by Labatut, but they’re two of my favorite quotes in the book.
John von Neumann says this to his brother as he explains why he is now focused on artificial intelligence, and the creation of technological beings that can live beyond the laws of nature.
This got me thinking about where we are today, and where we’re going. Is it the destiny of mankind to create things that are greater than us? Is progress inevitable? Is the finish line predetermined, and we are merely in the cocoon phase of humankind as we know it? Science is heavy stuff.
Thankfully, I work in advertising.
See you next week!
amazing guest! please feature again.