For many researchers, the coveted Nobel Prizes are the ultimate measure of achievement. Unfortunately, the probability of winning such an award is extremely slim.
Surely analyst Karl Kruszelnicki could not have won the award for performing a comprehensive survey of human belly button lint, nor could Chris McManus have won for his balanced report, “Scrotal Asymmetry in Man and in Ancient Sculpture.”
As frivolous as these studies may seem, they have now found their niche through the novel, yet serious Ig Nobel Prizes.
Around 15 years ago Marc Abrahams, creator of the awards, was the editor of the now-defunct science magazine The Journal of Irreproducible Results. At that time, many scientists approached Abrahams with claims that they deserved a Nobel Prize.
“I was always puzzled by that,” recalls Abrahams, “because it was clear they would never win a Nobel Prize”.
However, he did admit that many of the scientists’ supposedly prize-worthy achievements were “stunning in some sense.”
Thus, the Ig Nobel Prizes were born to “celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur people’s interest in science medicine, and technology.”
Since 1991, Abrahams has been awarding them to people whose achievements, in his words, “cannot or should not be reproduced.”
Abrahams said work worthy of the pseudo prizes was science that “first makes you laugh, then makes you think.”
A large committee including editors from The Annals of Improbable Research, as well as scientists, reporters and actual Nobel Prize winners chooses the award recipients. The nominees must be real people who have completed real achievements. Abrahams gives all potential winners a chance to turn down the award, in order to protect those whose careers could be damaged upon presentation of the prize.
Past winners include the trio Keita Sato, Dr. Matsumi Suzuki and Dr. Norio Kogure, for their work in promoting “peace and harmony between the species” by inventing Bow-Lingual, a computer-based dog-to-human language translation device; Buck Weimer for inventing Under-Ease, an anti-flatulence, airtight underwear with a replaceable filter, Viliuman Malinauskus for creating the amusement park known as “Stalin World;” Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari for their “probing medical discovery that nose picking is a common activity among adolescents;” the British Royal Navy for “ordering its sailors to stop using live cannon shells, and to instead just shout ‘Bang!’;” and Mark Hostetler for his book, “That Gunk on Your Car,” which identifies the insect splats that appear on automobile windows.
Even here in Madison, no one is safe from the broad scope of Abraham’s awards. Local duo David Busch and James Starling won an Ig Nobel for their report, “Rectal foreign bodies: Case reports and a comprehensive review of the world’s literature,” which cites reports of items including seven light bulbs, a knife sharpener, two flashlights, a wire spring, a frozen pig’s tail and a beer glass being lodged inside body cavities.
On the eve of this year’s awards presentation, Abrahams concluded that, “Our highest hope is that we will get some people curious about what they didn’t understand before.” As for the future of the Ig Nobel Prizes, he muses, “I’m afraid to say [there will be] nothing but good times.”
This year’s award show was held yesterday at Harvard University’s Sanders Theater and will be repeatedly broadcast via the Internet.
