Ig Nobel Prize

A live frog is magnetically levitated, an experiment that earned Andre Geim from the University of Nijmegen and Sir Michael Berry from University of Bristol the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in physics.

The Ig Nobel Prizes are an American parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year in early October for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Organized by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), they are presented by a group that includes genuine Nobel Laureates at a ceremony at Harvard University's Sanders Theater.

History

The first Ig Nobels were awarded in 1991, at that time for discoveries "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced". Ten prizes are awarded each year in many categories, including the Nobel Prize categories of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace, but also other categories such as public health, engineering, biology, and interdisciplinary research. With the exception of three prizes in the first year (Administratium, Josiah Carberry, and Paul DeFanti), the Ig Nobel Prizes are for genuine achievements.

The awards are sometimes veiled criticism, as in the two awards given for homeopathy research, prizes in "science education" to the Kansas and Colorado state boards of education for their stance regarding the teaching of evolution (see also Kansas evolution hearings), and the prize awarded to Social Text after the Sokal Affair. Most often, however, they draw attention to scientific articles that have some humorous or unexpected aspect. Examples range from the discovery that the presence of humans tends to sexually arouse ostriches, to the statement that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell, to research on the "five-second rule," a tongue-in-cheek belief that food dropped on the floor won't become contaminated if it is picked up within five seconds.

Name

The name is a play on the word ignoble ("characterized by baseness, lowness, or meanness") and the name "Nobel" after Alfred Nobel. The official pronunciation used during the ceremony is /ˌɪɡnoʊˈbɛl/ "ig-no-bell". It is not pronounced like the word "ignoble" (/ɪɡˈnoʊbəl/). Over the years, organizers have given many satirical origins for the names of the prize, including an early claim that Ig Nobel was the name of the man who invented soda pop.

Ceremony

The prizes are presented by genuine Nobel laureates, originally at a ceremony in a lecture hall at MIT but now in Harvard University's Sanders Theater. It contains a number of running jokes, including Miss Sweety Poo, a little girl who repeatedly cries out "Please stop. I'm bored" in a high-pitched voice if speakers go on too long. The awards ceremony is traditionally closed with the words: "If you didn't win a prize — and especially if you did — better luck next year!"

The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.

Throwing paper airplanes onto the stage was a long-standing tradition at the Ig Nobels, changed at the 2006 ceremony because of "security concerns". In past years, physics professor Roy Glauber has swept the stage clean of the airplanes as the official "Keeper of the Broom". However, Glauber could not attend the 2005 awards – he was traveling to Stockholm to claim a genuine Nobel Prize in Physics.

The "Parade of Ignitaries" brings various supporting groups into the hall. At the 1997 ceremonies, a team of "cryogenic sex researchers" distributed a pamphlet titled "Safe Sex at Four Kelvin". Delegates from the Museum of Bad Art are often on hand to display some pieces from their collection, showing that bad art and bad science go hand in hand.

Outreach

The ceremony is recorded and broadcast on National Public Radio and is shown live over the Internet. The recording is broadcast every year, on the Friday after U.S. Thanksgiving, on the public radio program Science Friday. In recognition of this, the audience repeatedly chant the first name of the radio show's host, Ira Flatow.

Two books have been published as of 3 September 2009 with write ups on some of the winners: The Ig Nobel Prize (2002, US paperback ISBN 0-452-28573-9, UK paperback ISBN 0-7528-4261-7) and The Ig Nobel Prize 2 (2005, US hardcover ISBN 0-525-94912-7, UK hardcover ISBN 0-7528-6461-0) which was later retitled The Man Who Tried to Clone Himself (ISBN 0-452-28772-3).

An Ig Nobel Tour has traveled to the United Kingdom and Australia several times. The Tour visited Aarhus University in Denmark in April 2009.

Criticism

In 1995, Robert May, Baron May of Oxford, the chief scientific adviser to the British government, requested that the organizers no longer award Ig Nobel prizes to British scientists, claiming that the awards risked bringing genuine experiments into ridicule. Many British researchers dismissed Lord May's pronouncements, and the British journal Chemistry and Industry in particular printed an article rebutting his arguments.

A September 2009 article in The National, titled "A noble side to Ig Nobels", says that although the Ig Nobel Awards are veiled criticism of trivial research, history shows that trivial research sometimes leads to important breakthroughs.

For instance, in 2006 a study showing that the malaria mosquito (Anopheles gambiae) is attracted equally to the smell of Limburger cheese as it is to the smell of human feet earned the Ig Nobel Prize in the area of biology. As a direct result of these findings this cheese has now been placed in strategic locations in the nations of Africa to combat the epidemic of malaria. The significant contribution this study inadvertently made toward preserving human life arguably highlights the importance of sharing sound experimental findings, irrespective of intended uses of said findings.

See also

• List of Ig Nobel Prize winners

External links

• Ig Nobel home page
• List of past winners, with reasons for prize