On April 30th,1981, Richard P. Feynman wrote a letter to Professor Dr. Sev'yan Vainshtein, a world-renowned expert on the small "Republic of Tuva", which is part of the Russian Federation and bordering Mongolia, right in the geographical center of Asia.
Mr. Feynman wrote to ask Dr. Vainshtein for his help in obtaining a visa to visit Tuva.
Alouette Verlag, a publisher in Germany, recently published a popular written scientific book called Mysterious Tuva — Expeditions into the Heart of Asia, which includes a DVD presenting a 72 minute documentary following the author's expeditions into Tuva between 1950 and 1992.
The documentary shows part of Professor Feynman's letter, which serves as the focal point point of this intriguing story, while Dr. Vainshtein sits at his typewriter and writes him back.
In April 2005, there was a presentation of this newly published edition of the book to Dr. Vainshtein's, which took place on the 12th of April, his 79th birthday, at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Moscow RAS.
I was studying physics at the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of 1966. I was having a hard time in quantum mechanics and didn't have a clue what the professor was talking about.
One day while passing some students in the hall I overheard one of them say to the other "Fineman is a fine man." I had no idea what he meant. About a week later while in the university bookstore, I saw some stacks of red books on the floor and noticed the name Feynman on the cover. A little lightbulb turned on and I realized this must be the person that the student was talking about. I bought volumes 2 and 3. I read volume 3 like crazy. It was incredible. I could actually understand the chapters and they were fascinating. So this is what my professor was talking about!
I wrote a short letter to Dr. Feynman telling him how great his books were. I didn't know who he was at the time. He kindly wrote back to thank me. It is just a simple thank you letter but it meant a lot to me.
I knew Dick Feynman as a fellow scientist at Los Alamos during World War II and vividly recall one of my first impressions of him.
Walking along the street with my wife and baby daughter, we passed the children's playground and there, on a teeter-totter were Hans Bethe and Dick Feynman, riding up and down and busily engaged in serious conversation, probably about some deep physics problem.
On a much later occasion at the 40th anniversary of Los Alamos in 1983, which brought many of us old-timers back to "the hill", some of us circulated a petition addressed to President Reagan and Mr. Brezhnev, urging an end to the arms race. It contained a sentence saying something like "We, as scientists who helped develop the atomic bomb, take responsibility for our actions during WW II, but..."
Almost everyone but Edward Teller signed because he felt we were fomenting WW III. But when we approached Dick Feynman with the petition, he read it and said in his characteristic way "I don't take responsibility for anything, but I'll sign it anyway."
This is not a story about Richard P. Feynman but instead my mother who was born in Far Rockaway, NY and lived in Woodmere and Lake Success, NY until her death in 1983 at the age of 65.
Her maiden name was Lucille Feldman, and she attended P.S.39 (Fine fine 39 always ready and always on time!) and Far Rockaway High School. I am going to venture a guess that at P.S. 39 my mother sat in front of Richard Feynman, a.k.a. Fel, Fey.
I don't remember the exact particulars of the story because the last time I heard it was 22 years ago. She told of a class assignment, one in which you were to read a mystery, and get up in front of the class to give your report. A young Richard Feynman gave his report, and it was thrilling, exciting, a great read and mystery. At the end of the report he said what he had read from was a math book. That was the way he told a story and got it across to the listener, even in grade school.
I only hope that someone is still around from that class at P.S. 39. I remember at the 50th anniversary of the 2nd grade class, a picture was printed in the local newspaper, showing how well this class did in life.
My son reads Mr. Feynman's books in his spare time from medical school. My mother would have been proud of him.
