Improbable Research

Walter H. G. Lewin, 71, a physics professor, has long had a cult following at M.I.T. And he has now emerged as an international Internet guru, thanks to the global classroom the institute created to spread knowledge through cyberspace.

So says a December 19, 2007 New York Times profile. The Times does not mention one of Professor Lewin’s most unusual accomplishments. At the 2001 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Professor Lewin accepted custody of the Ig Nobel Astrophysics Prize on behalf of the winners, televangelists Jack and Rexella Van Impe. The Van Impes (who said they could not attend the ceremony because they had “a previously scheduled fund-raiser”) won the prize for their discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell. Paying tribute to the Van Impes, Professor Lewin said:

I accept this prestigious prize on behalf of Jack and Rexella Van Impe for their breakthrough contributions to astrophysics by making the intriguing connection between black holes and Hell.

Now, I do real research in black holes. A black hole is one of the most bizarre, exciting, fascinating, enigmatic and mind-boggling objects in our entire universe. Black holes are unimaginable. They go beyond our wildest expectations, fantasies and dreams. As a scientist, you can’t wish for more. Black holes are heaven for us.

However, we were recently straightened out by Jack and Rexella, who have shown that black holes fulfill all the requirements of Hell. As a result of their incredible insights, we now have to rethink our ideas about black holes — and I, for one, will be much more careful than ever about getting too close to the inner workings of black holes; and maybe my soul will be spared after all.

I can put this in seven words: Black holes are wonderful, but stay away.

NOTE: Click on the photo to see an unrelated incident — Professor Lewin beating a student named Simon, with cat fur.

Investigator Edmond Orignac contributes to the MAY WE RECOMMEND: The Science of G. Bush project:

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It should be noted that there was a George Bush who was a professor of Hebrew and Oriental Litterature at the New York City University (I guess this was the old name of CUNY) in the 1830s.

George Bush has authored a Grammar of the Hebrew language that has been digitalized by Google.

George Bush was also a Bible scholar. A notable work of George Bush is “The millenium of the Apocalypse“.

Other works include:
Genesis
Joshua
Deuteronomy
Exodus
Resurrection of the Body
Leviticus
Judges
The book of numbers
New Testament

George Bush is also the author of an anticlerical pamphlet
entitled “Priesthood and Clergy unknown to Christianity”

He was apparently a Swedenborgian:

Statement of reasons for embracing the doctrines and disclosures of Emanuel Swedenborg
Mesmer and Swedenborg
Response to Ralph Waldo Emerson on Swedenborg
Reply to Dr. Woods lectures on Swedenborgianism

There are probably other works by this author that have not been digitalized, but might be found via the Library of Congress.

I hope that theology and oriental litterature can be a valuable addition to the Science of George Bush.

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Welcome to the grand Improbable Research experiment. We are putting the entire magazine online for free.

Beginning with the current issue — vol. 13, no. 6, November/December 2007, the special Ig Nobel issue — the Annals of Improbable Research will be available online in three forms. Several years of back issues are also online (though not in quite as many forms).

Fear not. The magazine will also continue to be available in the best of all possible forms: traditional on-the-toilet-readable paper-and-ink.

We invite you to read to your head’s content!

PS (on Dec 28): You might enjoy, as we did, this description in Wired.

The December issue of mini-AIR just went out. Topics include: The Rupziyat Boppum Challenge; Baker’s Honey Conundrum; the Bjork-Shiley Convexo-Concave Valves Competition; Sopranos Last Longer; etc.(If you would like to have mini-AIR automatically sent to your email box every month, please subscribe to it. It’s free.)

Dr. Hari Mohan Saxena submits the research program below. Dr. Saxena is Professor cum Head, Department of Veterinary Microbiology, College of Veterinary Science, GADVASU, Ludhiana India. The drawing is by his daughter, Priyanka Saxena.

Dr. Saxena writes:

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The cow is worshipped in India because it gives milk to nourish the body. However, there is one reason to worship even the dry, unproductive cow as it could be a wonderful source of fuel to run your car. The ruminants like cattle and buffaloes are known to produce methane through the degradation of feed by methanogenic bacteria present in their rumen. The emission of methane by the bovines has even been claimed to contribute to the green house effect and hence to the global warming. However, this metabolic capability of the cow can be exploited to human advantage by collecting the methane by canulation of rumen. The methane can be accumulated and stored in cylinders and can later be converted into alcohol which can be used as a fuel additive or a fuel substitute. The technology of converting methane into alcohol is known and is already in commercial use.

The canulation of rumen is not difficult and is used by animal physiologists to study the rumen physiology. Once the canula is in place, its opening can be connected with a tube for collecting the gas. The tube can be detached from the canula and the opening of the canula can be easily closed when required. The process of canulation of rumen is not required to be repeated again. Once the canula is in place, it does not cause any pain or suffering to the animal. Cannulated cows are similar to any other cow with one exception - they are fitted with a canula, or a small window. The process doesn’t really hurt the cows. A canula is placed on a cow through a surgery done when it is two to three years old. The cow is anesthetized during the surgery, so it doesn’t experience any pain. Cannulating cows doesn’t affect their ability to function as a normal cow. Their digestive systems are not inhibited in any way.

This idea would be useful for making the use of stray unproductive animals and particularly the male cattle and buffaloes which are not permitted to be slaughtered in India on religious grounds and are currently being reared and fed at free animal shelters by religious people and charitable organizations without any economic benefit.

This photo below shows Rob Ives an hour before he lectured about his experience as a design engineer. (The lecture was part of the Improbable Research seminar at Imperial College London, on November 26.) Ives is a master maker of all-paper mechanical toys. His company, Flying Pig, makes punch-out-the-pieces-and-assemble-’em-yourself kits in two forms: pre-printed, pre-scored paper and download-and-printable. Some of the toys are visible here. Ives likes to explain the mechanisms.

Perhaps his most celebrated design is the mechanical Flying Spaghetti Monster model, of whom it is writ: “Once complete turn the handle on this cardboard curiosity and the Flying Spaghetti Monster waves his noodly appendages.” A 40-second-long video shows the creation and life of an FSM.

Decades ago I discovered a cure for mental health problems. The cure, which I term the Kadir-Buxton Method, has been used on a wide variety of mental health problems. The procedure stuns and resets the brain of the patient, so that the patient returns to a normal condition. The Kadir-Buxton Method is done by making a fist of both hands, and striking both ears of the patient at exactly the same time and pressure with the soft part of the inner hand which is where the thumb joins the hand. The arrow in Figure 1 shows this point for your ease of use.

So writes the inventor of the the Kadir-Buxton Method. The inventor also offers a “Low Tech Solution for Primary Menstrual Cramps.”

(Thanks to investigator Elias Rosa for bringing this to our attention.)

Dr. Paul Albanese, Kent State University associate professor of marketing and author of The Personality Continuum and Consumer Behavior, has taken [things] a step further. In his current research, Albanese examined shopping behavior and classified it into four levels of personality development: Normal, neurotic, primitive and psychotic.

So says a December 6, 2007 press release issued by Kent State University. The psychotic shoppers, says the press release, cause “serious financial and legal problems.”

(Thanks to investigator Kristine Danowski for bringing this to our attention.)

1997 Ig Nobel Astronomy Prize winner Richard Hoagland has a new book out. He won his Ig for identifying artificial features on the moon and on Mars, including a human face on Mars and ten-mile high buildings on the far side of the moon. Those discoveries appear in his book “The Monuments of Mars : A City on the Edge of Forever.

The new book, called Dark Mission, is said to contain equally impressive discoveries. The publisher explains:

Why is the Bush administration intent on returning to the Moon as quickly as possible? What are the reasons for the current “space race” with China, Russia, even India? Remarkable images reproduced within this book provided to the authors by disaffected NASA employees give clues why, including spectacular information about lunar and Martian discoveries.

(Thanks to Mark Frauenfelder for bringing this to our attention)

Of today’s many press headlines about a cat in Korea that was engineered to glow in the dark, the most intriguing appears in the Telegraph in London:

Glow-in-the-dark cat could help cut disease

What sort of person is named Rupzoiyat?

In 1916, a researcher at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, asked that very question - and conducted an experiment to find the answer.

The researcher, herself named G English, wanted to understand what she called “the nature of the psychological response to proper names of unknown persons”. This is a question Shakespeare made famous by stating it in a mere four-and-a-half words: What’s in a name?

In particular, G English wanted to test a theory proposed by a Swiss psychologist, Edouard Claparède…

So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.

Got psoriasis? One option for treatment is to let a particular kind of fish chew on your face. Where to obtain this treatment? Try the Kangal fish spa in Turkey.

The Kangal fish spa, 13 kilometers from the center of the town of Kangal, boasts of a “certificate given from the Turkish Ministry of Health… Authorization from the State bares such an importance for health business in Turkey.”

The clinic offers scientific research reports to explain the benefits of the treatment.

(Thanks to investigator Meesan Lim for bringing this to our attention.)

At some point we noticed a crack in the windshield of our car. It’s a single line, about 8 inches long, not the spider web fracture typical of a pebble or assassination attempt. We don’t know exactly when it happened or how.

Our insurance covers it. But when I went to file the claim through SafeLight, the person on the phone insisted that I give a reason why the glass broke. The fact is that I don’t know. But that is not an acceptable answer. Rain? Hail? Pebble? Collision? Branch? Vandalism? Collision? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. So I said it was vandalism.

I wonder how many of our national statistics are skewed by a failure to provide an “I don’t know” or “Other” box…

So writes David Weinberger.

Investigator Luis García-Barrios invites you to assist him in a research project. He writes:

Here is an experiment (involving thousands of subjects) which has been going on for decades at the doors of the Santa Maria de Fiore Cathedral in Florence, Italy; an experiment which would make any high-tech neuroscientist drool with excitement.

Every day, hundreds of tourists line up at one of the cathedral´s lateral doors and are held for a couple of minutes at the entrance by guards who control the flow. People look at the art-work on the guilded bronze door-sheets while waiting. The olive-green patina of copper oxid on the right door-sheet has been slightly removed from the panel and from the head of a saint´s 40cm-statue by curious tourist with sweaty hands (figure 1 RIGHT). Surprisingly, the same part of the left door-sheet is greener but the helmet of a soldier´s statue is absolutely clean and glows in the sun (figure 1 LEFT). Tourist are grabbing it full-hand, and at least a hundred times more frequently than the saint´s head!

So what´s going on? Do people like soldiers better than saints? Are tourists-looking-at-art more right-brain-directed at the time, and therefore drift to the left? Our gut feeling points to something between left and right - but we just can´t grasp it. Can you help me with the job?

Researchers —especially scholars of rituals—have devoted little attention to the ritual object called the “Smile Jesus Loves You Sucker.” This ritual object is sold by an organization called Christian Dollar. The price is U.S. 35 cents per Smile Jesus Loves You Sucker.

(Thanks to Shakesville for bringing this to our attention.)