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Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey by Ralph Leighton
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Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey

by Ralph Leighton

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Off-beat , wonderful video!: If you are a fan of Richard Feynman, the nuclear physicist that dreamed of going to Tuva, you will just love this video. If you know nothing of Mr. Feynman, you will still enjoy it. It tells the story of Paul Pena's visit to Tuva in a delightful way. You will like seeing the culture of these peaceful, music-loving people.
  iayork | Aug 9, 2009 |
As a huge fan of Richard Feynman's books of collected anecdotes, I was excited to read about him from some one else's perspective. Feynman, when talking about himself, has such a strange blend of self-deprecation, arrogance and genius that I was very curious to see how he would come off in another's eyes. And I was very satisfied to discover that Feynman appears to be more endearing from another's perspective than even when he writes about himself. The story is bitter-sweet, as it chronicles how he spent some of his last months before dying of cancer, but inspiring and wonderful to see how his mind and curiosity couldn't be put off by even that. ( )
  MeganAndJustin | Jul 28, 2007 |
As a huge fan of Richard Feynman's books of collected anecdotes, I was excited to read about him from some one else's perspective. Feynman, when talking about himself, has such a strange blend of self-deprecation, arrogance and genius that I was very curious to see how he would come off in another's eyes. And I was very satisfied to discover that Feynman appears to be more endearing from another's perspective than even when he writes about himself. The story is bitter-sweet, as it chronicles how he spent some of his last months before dying of cancer, but inspiring and wonderful to see how his mind and curiosity couldn't be put off by even that. ( )
  dotarvi | Jun 27, 2006 |
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Ralph Leighton

Richard Feynman

Tuva or Bust!

Book description

Amazon.com (ISBN 0393320693, Paperback)

Richard Feynman, brilliant physicist and inspirational teacher, wasn't much for coats and ties. He lived a life that the adjective "bohemian" doesn't begin to cover, scripting percussion scores for avant-garde ballet troupes, musing over life's imponderables, and delighting and annoying his many friends with odd-duck questions--all the while teaching generations of students at CalTech.

Always adventurous, Feynman was also a careful planner, recounts his friend and fellow drummer Ralph Leighton in this affectionate memoir. When a chance remark happened to dislodge a long-dormant memory of a faraway Siberian land called Tannu-Tuva, Feynman and Leighton set about scheming to get there--a program that included learning the little-described Tuvan language, picking up the rudiments of throat singing, and reading the scattered, hard-to-find literature concerning a place that, in Feynman's fond view, was as close to paradise as the earth contained. It also involved corresponding with scholars in what was still the Soviet Union and wrangling with bureaucrats to secure the necessary papers--all for the sake of seeing a country that had to be interesting, Feynman insisted, just because its capital, Kyzyl, had such an odd spelling.

These picaresque armchair adventures make up the bulk of Tuva or Bust, an unconventional mix of travelogue and scientific biography that's a pleasure to read at every turn. The book yields a memorable picture of Richard Feynman--who did not live to see Tuva, but whose memory is honored there today, thanks to Leighton's refusal to abandon their shared dream. --Gregory McNamee

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:18 -0400)

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