A Game with Sharpened Knives

This fiction debut centres on the pivotal years of Schrodinger's exile in Ireland.

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This is a novel based on the life of Erwin Shrodinger, one of the giants of 20th-century scientific thought. Neil Belton concentrates on the time Shrodinger spent living in Ireland. In 1938, Germany invaded Austria and Schrodinger was dismissed from his university post. The Prime Minister of Ireland at the time, Eamon de Valera, was a mathematician and invited Schrodinger to join the newly established Institute for Advanced Studies in Dublin. Schrodinger emigrated there with few possessions and little money. He remained for 17 years, often turning his attention to philosophical questions about physics and its relationship to other fields. Through this backdrop of historical fact Belton has fashioned a novel of immense power, brilliantly evoking the isolated Ireland of the Second World War as well as the character of a complicated genius.