The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook

A near-novelistic account that’s part quantum science, part biography, and part history, this story of 16th-century polymath Jerome Cardano delivers enjoyment on every level. In a postmodern turn, science writer Brooks (13 Things That Don’t Make Sense) inserts himself into the narrative as a sympathetic interviewer and “unreliable narrator,” chatting with the 69-year-old Cardano in 1570 in an Inquisition prison. Born in Milan in 1501, Jerome (Brooks is on a first-name basis with his subject) “always wanted to be famous.” Defying his father, Jerome spurned law for medicine and supported himself by gambling, which he mastered through his insights into the laws of probability. His invention of imaginary numbers gave foundation for the mathematics of quantum mechanics centuries later. Adding astrology to his arsenal increased Jerome’s fame, but also led to an Inquisition sentence of permanent house arrest. The author breathes life into the intrigues of the 16th century, from a political crisis point which turns on a king receiving a favorable horoscope, to public math battles in the town square between bitter rivals. Brooks’s work offers a bewitching and intimate mix of biography and science. (Sept.)