Does Science always have to serious? Or can it be funny at times too?
A few years ago, some people decided it could be; when there’s a parody for everything right from movies and songs to stories and what not, why not make a parody of the prestigious Nobel Prize? They put those thoughts into action and that’s how the IG Nobel prizes came into the picture. The IG Nobel prizes are provided to honour achievements that make people laugh at the beginning but also make them think. These awards are given to people who produce the most absurd results from doing weird research which still manages to have the knowledge factor in it. The award is organized by the Scientific humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research ( AIR ) and are presented by actual Nobel laureates at a ceremony held every year at Harvard University and MIT.
Here are a few of the interesting and hilarious IG awards:
Stephen Bolliger, Steffen Ross and team – This team from the University of Bern, Switzerland were given the 2013 IG Peace Nobel prize for determining which hurts more – being smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle? (Imagine the condition of the person they used for running this experiment!)
Javier Morales and team – The chemistry IG Nobel prize for the year 2013 were given to them for creating Diamonds from Tequila. As if tequila wasn’t popular enough, who would miss out on a chance to turn it into diamonds? However, there are a couple of catches; you need a high temperature of about 600 degrees Fahrenheit and a very involved process before you can place it on your ring!
Eric Topel, R. Califf, F. Van de Werf, P.W. Armstrong and their 972 co-authors – In 1993, they won the IG literature award for publishing a medical research paper which has one hundred times as many authors as pages.
Jay Schiffman – Won the IG prize in 1993 for Visionary Technology for inventing a machine called AutoVision, an image projecting device which makes it possible to drive a car and watch television at the same time and also for making it legal to do so in the Michigan state!
The Southern Baptist Church of Alabama – This was awarded in mathematics: Mathematical measures of morality, for their county-by-county estimate of how many Alabama citizens will go to Hell if they don’t repent.
Lianne Parkin and Patricia Priest – They received the IG Nobel prize in physics for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
W. Brian Sweeney, Brian Krafte-Jacobs, Jeffrey W. Britton, and Wayne Hansen – They received the award in Biology for their breakthrough study, “The Constipated Serviceman: Prevalence Among Deployed US Troops” and especially for their numerical analysis of bowel movement frequency. (pretty disgusting though)
John Paul Stapp, the late Edward A. Murphy, Jr., and George Nichols –This award was given for making up the Murphy’s Law, the basic engineering principle that “If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, someone will do it.”
Daisuke Inoue of Hyogo PEACE, Japan – What he invented was one of the best breakthroughs of that period – the Karaoke machine, thereby providing an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other!
The US Government General Accountability Office – Literature (try to get this one) : Awarded for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.
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