Gideon Gono, author of the new book Zimbabwe’s Casino Economy – Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges, displays a rare, perhaps unique, kind of scholarly reserve. He is a scholar with a PhD from Atlantic International University. The US-based institution, which has mostly distance-learning courses, proclaims on its website: “Atlantic international university is not accredited by an accrediting agency recognised by the United States secretary of education.” And he has reserve, or rather Reserve, with a capital “R”. Since December 2003, Gono has been the governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank.
Two weeks ago, Gono was awarded the 2009 Ig Nobel prize in mathematics. The Ig Nobel citation lauds him for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers – from very small to very big – by having his bank print banknotes with denominations ranging from one cent to 100 trillion dollars….
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.