Atd : page 542---starts on page 524.Big Ass Spoiler

[Monte Davis]

Anville:

> So, rilly, the **only** significant contact point between Kit Traverse and
Richard 
> Feynman is Tannu Tuva.

I pretty much agree, although I respect Robin's eye in many other regards.
As picturesque as Feynman's interest in Tannu Tuva (along with a million
other things) was, as much as he enjoyed goading the Soviet bureaucracy, and
as entertainingly as he spun out the story, it simply wasn't a big deal for
him. Nor for him was it part of the cluster Pynchon puts it in (Tibet,
Shambhala, Indiana Webb and the Spenglerian Mysteries of Central Asia). 

Glad to see you mention "The Tao of Physics" -- yes, it is the prime
exemplar for the past generation of mystery-mongering with scientific
wrapping, rather like the 1900 overlap of T.W.I.T. types and "reputables"
(Crookes, Heaviside, Conan Doyle, William James et al) who thought
spiritualism might be worth investgating. The Tesla cult, which has had
several rises and falls over the decades, is another: he was a genuinely
great engineer and inventor, who gradually went genuinely crazy -- and
without grappling with at least some physics and math, it's next to
impossible to tease apart those threads. Add the conspiratorial element AtD
plays with-- Tesla was going to provide the world with broadcast energy free
from the air, but They blocked him and/or turned his discoveries into
weapons -- and you've got rich soil. 

There are real mysteries in natural science, and real mysteries in -- as
they used to say on _Ben Casey_ --  "man, woman, birth, death, infinity."
That doesn't mean they're the same mysteries, or that our approach to the
latter is enhanced by hand-waving about the former.

I feel a "weird science" article for the Wiki coming on...