Two weeks ago I saw a little news item:  Bill Gates had succeeded in acquiring the rights to the films of some classic lectures on physics by Richard Feynman and was making them available free, for all the world to see.

Who was Richard Feynman? As a child, not so impressive–he didn’t speak a word until he was three.  But he mastered differential calculus when he was 15, earned a bachelor’s degree from MIT and then a doctorate from Princeton.

He was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, but the bulk of his career was spent in academia, teaching at California Institute of Technology.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics.

Decades later, during the investigation of the Challenger space shuttle explosion, Feynman won widespread recognition for his demonstration–using a glass of ice water, a rubber O-ring and a C-clamp–that cold O-rings were the primary cause of the disaster.

The seven lectures, which you can find online at the Microsoft Research Web Site under the name “Project Tuva,” were recorded at Cornell University in 1964, and feature Feynman addressing a full lecture hall with insight, clarity and humor, explaining these topics:

• Law of Gravitation: An Example of Physical Law
• The Relation of Mathematics and Physics
• The Great Conservation Principles
• Symmetry in Physical Law
• The Distinction of Past and Future
• Probability and Uncertainty: The Quantum Mechanical View of Nature
• Seeking New Laws

Included with the first lecture (and eventually the others) is rich supplementary material that you can click on to explore specific ideas further.  I think the folks at Microsoft did a great job on the project.

I’ve watched the first two lectures … and I plan to get to the rest, even though physics is not my strongest suit.  Because Feynman was an excellent teacher, the lectures are interesting … which is one reason Bill Gates thought it worth the time and money to make them available to the world.  In addition, Gates is hoping other great lectures in other fields will be made available.  And, of course, he’s hoping to stimulate interest in the sciences; the world (Microsoft included) needs bright scientists and engineers.  As a proponent of education for all people at all stages of life, I applaud the effort.

But why the name “Project Tuva?”

Because in 1977, Feynman and colleague Ralph Leighton, spurred by Feynman’s recollection of the odd triangular and diamond-shaped stamps he’d seen as a youthful stamp collector–from a place named Tannu Tuva–pulled out an atlas and found the little country of Tuva, situated roughly northwest of Mongolia.

And on seeing that Tuva’s capital, Kyzyl, was spelled with no conventional vowels, they resolved to visit the place!

Now the easy (or least difficult) way would have been for Feynman to secure a speaking engagement in Moscow–not difficult for a Nobel Prize winner–and to use that as a steppingstone for a visit to Tuva.  But he abhorred the Soviets and their control of information and restrictions of freedom.

So Feynman, whose hobbies included bongo playing and safe-cracking, and who liked adventure and the untrodden path, determined that he and Leighton would do it on their own.

The story of this project, whose obstacles included language, distance, time, and the global political climate of the time–is related in the book, “Tuva or Bust,” by Ralph Leighton.  It’s an easy read, very entertaining, and I recommend it.

Today, of course, we have the Internet, so the research that Feynman and Leighton took years to accomplish can be done with a few hundred mouse clicks from the comfort of your home.

A quick trip to the Internet tells me that Tuva, now a Republic of Russia, is notable for being the geographic center of Asia, the place on earth that’s farthest from any ocean.

Physically, it’s a mountain basin, bordered by Mongolia, Altai Republic, Buryat Republic, Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Kra and Republic of Khakassia.  The tallest mountain is Mongun-Tayga, which at 3,970 meters equals the Eiger in Switzerland.

And there are some 9,000 rivers in the republic, fed every spring by lots of melting snow.  Most notable is the upper region of the Yenesei River, the fifth longest river in the world, which flows north through Siberia and empties into the Kara Sea.

With an area the size of Florida (but 80% mountains or hills), Tuva has a population of 305,000, less than Cincinnati.  And that population, like many of the satellite nations/republics that border Russia, has had a long and varied relationship with China, Russia and the Soviet Union … which I won’t get into now.

If you do get an urge to visit Tuva, it’s substantially easier today than when Richard Feynman began his quest.  After acquiring a Russian visa, you simply fly to Russia, then fly 2,620 miles to Abakan (the capital of the Republic of Khakassia) and then drive south 260 miles to Kyzyl.

Finally, here are three facts that I find interesting.

One: The Tuvans are best known to the outside world for their throat singing, in which the resonant cavities of the mouth, larynx and pharynx are shaped to produce an overtone that is different from the main sound produced by the vocal folds.  The result is two (or more) distinct sounds from one mouth.  Other cultures still practice throat singing, but less famously, and in general it is a dying tradition.  The last Japanese practitioner died in 1976, and among the Inuit, it has been reduced to a game.

Two: The Tuvan people, relatively isolated for generations, are the closest genetic relatives to the original inhabitants of North America, who arrived via Siberia via land bridge … which explains the practice of throat singing among the Inuit.

Three: Tuvans have long had a spiritual relationship with nature, not unlike the Inuit and other cultures that were insulated from mainstream religious thought.  The various types of Tuvan throat singing, in fact, attempt to mirror natural sounds like whistling birds, bubbling streams, howling wolves and blowing wind.

By chance, while researching this topic, I found that one of the most accomplished music groups in Tuva, four men performing under the name Alash, was just beginning its fourth consecutive summer tour of the U.S.  So on Sunday afternoon I drove 40 minutes to the Lowell Folk Festival and enjoyed a live performance.  The music was easy to like and the crowd loved it.

And thus I thank Bill Gates for indirectly introducing me to Tuvan throat singing!