Tuva or Bust!

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Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey by Ralph Leighton. Richard Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning physicist, widely recognized as one of the great original thinkers of physics, in this century, and perhaps in all time. He apparently never actually wrote a book, but there are numerous books with his name on them. Supposedly, all were lectures transcribed by some of his students, or stories he told to Ralph Leighton. He was one of the members of the committee investigating the disaster of the Space Shuttle Challenger.  Tuva Or Bust is about Feynman's efforts, late in his life, to visit Tuva, or Tuvinskaya, ASSR, a mountainous country adjacent to Mongolia. And, its capital is Kyzyl. Feynman wanted to visit Kyzyl, "because it's spelled K-Y-Z-Y-L." And "A place that's spelled K-Y-Z-Y-L has just got to be interesting."  Feynman noticed Tuva when he collected stamps as a child. There are triangular and diamond-shaped stamps of Tuvans, doing what Tuvans do (stand by your camel, for example). Feynman's attempts to get to Tuva give insight into the way he approached a theoretical physics problem. He explores, and attacks here and there, and makes some progress, and explores some more, and interests others in the problem, and they attack as well. It's inspirational, in an amusing way. Feynman and Leighton were on the verge of flying to Tuva when Feynman died of cancer. The hardcover comes with a flexible plastic phonograph record of Tuvan throat singing -- where a single performer can produce up to six notes at the same time.  Read an excerpt.

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Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman, as told to Ralph Leighton. A series of anecdotes shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman cheerfully ignores in his engagingly eccentric book, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the smart-alecky author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realize that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems; and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigor and verve in his no-bull prose.

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What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman, as told to Ralph Leighton. More legendary "Feynman stories" plus the lesser known (but very powerful) love story of Arlene, and the Chief's experiences on the commission investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

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