The Last Journey of a Genius | Hacker News Reader

The Last Journey of a Genius

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62 pointssr3d13 comments

I just finished a 2nd book about Richard Feynman in a few hours (I basically devoured it) and went searching more about him and his life. I ran into this video and it was the first time I've seen him. He's such a remarkable figure and his out look on life is amazingly as remarkable. I only wish I had come to know about Feynman earlier, but I'm glad I know and read about him. I'm deeply moved. Thanks Feynman for such wisdom in life and how to live your life like an adventure. And Touva does sound great as a next traveling destination.

If you want to get a feel of what Tuva's like have a look at the Mongolia episode of Long Way Round:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5538321375706386968

They drive through the Altay mountains which is next to Tuva and is the mythical home land of the Turkic people.

Might I ask which books you've read about him? Thanks.

I read "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" You can pick these 2 books on Amazon used for a couple cents plus 3.99 shipping.

I'm going to check them out, thanks!

You might want to read Tuva or Bust! by Ralph Leighton. It features Feynman as he and Ralph planned their trip to Tuva. With that said, it's a good book but I prefer the first two books because they are more about Feynman's thoughts and ideas than anything.

Here's a great interview with Feynman, many of the clips in the "Last Journey of a Genius" video are from it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the%20pleasure%20of...

A piece of Feynman's wisdom, in case you didn't read it yet : http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/challenger-appendix.html

The great thing about Feynman is that he defies the image of the world-distant, confused, aloof university professor, but rather comes across like someone you'd love to have a beer with while talking about interesting stuff.

i hope he got his orange juice

Ok, this guy IS a genius physicist. However why the hell didn't he just get on a plane and fly to Tuva?!?!? Or hike there!

There are terrorists paying to learn how to fly in the US, there are Mexicans coming across the US border, journalists wandering into Iran, and many other places. However a genius couldn't figure out how to get there.

Instead he spent 5 years figuring out the language and trying to get some sort of random "official" approval through numerous exchanges with people around the world. The botanists however just walked there. I spent 45 minutes hoping to see entrepreneurial thought at work and all I found was genius physicist who couldn't get to a remote country.

Am I the only one that finds this lame? I'm not saying I'm not inspired by his work but his approach to getting to Tuva is the exact way you prevent forward motion in a startup. He put false hurdles/barriers in front of himself to make it more exciting and romanticize it rather than just go there.

Disappointing.

Tuva was a hobby for Feynman? He got a real kick out of researching Tuva and stepping foot in Tuva was not the main goal?

Several possible reasons:

- Touva was probably not Feynman's main goal, but trying to get there is by itself an adventure with Ralph, his friend.

- He had cancer for almost 10 years. This must have had a tremendous impact on his health.

- It was the mid-80s, you couldn't just Google about Touva and find out about it.

- The cold-war was still going on. And probably USSR was still very much a black-box.

- He worked on several government projects (imagine what security clearance he was when he worked on investigating the Challenger explosion), so going to the a country within the USSR was probably a real challenge.

Granted he could pull some strings in the government to get a piece of invitation paper, but that's not the point. Plus after reading about Feynman, he's not the type of people to do something like that just to go to another mysterious country. He'd find creative ways to do his goal and enjoy the the process as things unfolded. If you feel disappointed about Feynman coudln't fulfill his goal of reaching Touva, then you have miss the point about the whole story. Nonetheless, he did get an invitation to go to Touva a few days after he passed away. So he did succeed after all.

And no, there's nothing specific about "entrepreneurial thoughts" in the video, so you have had a wrong expectation to begin with.

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