Improbable Research

As fans of the Ig Nobel Ceremony, opera, and large-scale economic failure may remember, “The Big Bank Opera” premiered as a featured part of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. A few weeks ago, we posted all four acts to YouTube, each as a separate episode (#124-7) of the Improbable Research TV series.

The libretto of the Opera is also published in the latest issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.

Furthermore, Acts One (“Two Bankers Meet in a Bar…”), Two (“How to Solve The World’s Biggest Problem”), Three (“Big Bank Theory”), and Four (“To Boldly Go”) have now been made available on Vimeo, for redundancy and higher-quality video enjoyment.

The grand finale from Act 4 is embedded after the break.

“The Big Bank Opera” premiered as a featured part of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Here’s the entire mini-opera — Act 1, Act 2, Act 3 and Act 4 — each as a separate episode (#124-7) of the Improbable Research TV series. The video displayed below is Act 3, which is called “The Big Bank Theory”:

Details:

William Lipscomb, the 1976 Nobel laureate in chemistry, is a Kentucky colonel. He is famous for wearing string ties. Here he demonstrates how to tie a string tie. We made this video as part of the celebration for Professor Lipscomb’s upcoming 90th birthday.

Big Banks and the Big Bang theory combine in these two new episodes (#122 and #121) of the Improbable Research TV series.

These were filmed at an early rehearsal of “The Big Bank Opera”. The plot:  Stylish bankers in a swanky Wall Street bar explain the explosive rise and fall of big banking and big bankers.

In Act 1 (below), the two bankers meet for the first time, and fall in love with their financial futures. In Act 3 (above), one of the bankers looks back, years later, at the Big Bang origins of the universe and the Big Bank destruction of the financial system.

This mini-opera has music by L.v. Beethoven & G. Rossini, and words by Marc Abrahams.

Starring Maria Ferrante and Ben Sears, and Branden Grimmett, it premieres October 1, 2009 as part of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University. It will be webcast live at improbable.com.

(This rehearsal happened at the home of Nobel Prize winner (Chemistry 1976) William Lipscomb. Professor Lipscomb and several colleagues will play a supporting role on stage in the premiere.)

To see these episodes, click on the images, and you will be whisked to YouTube (where you can subscribe, if you like, to the Improbable Research channel).

Here’s the new episode — #121, “Big Bank Opera Rehearsal, Act 1″ — of the Improbable Research TV series.

The episode depicts an early rehearsal of Act 1 of “The Big Bank Opera”, in which stylish bankers in a swanky Wall Street bar explain the explosive rise and fall of big banking and big bankers.

This mini-opera has music by L.v. Beethoven & G. Rossini, and words by Marc Abrahams.

Starring Maria Ferrante and Ben Sears, and Branden Grimmett, it premieres October 1, 2009 as part of the 2009 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University. It will be webcast live at improbable.com.

(This rehearsal happened at the home of Nobel Prize winner (Chemistry 1976) William Lipscomb. Professor Lipscomb will play a supporting role on stage in the premiere.)

To see this episode, click on the image at right, and you will be whisked to YouTube (where you can subscribe, if you like, to the Improbable Research channel).

Here’s the new episode — #119, “MRI Sex” — of the Improbable Research TV series. Dr. Pek Van Andel, who won an Ig Nobel Prize for making the first MRI images of a couple’s sex organs while those organs were in use, also made a video of the phenomenon. Here, more or less, is the world premiere of that video. As you might imagine from the description, this video may be inappropriate for certain sensitive audiences (NSFW, in Internet parlance).

To see this episode, click on the image at right, and you will be whisked to YouTube (where you can subscribe, if you like, to the Improbable Research channel).

These are three-minute videos about research that makes people laugh, then makes them think.

For links about each episode’s content, and an FAQ, see the Improbable TV page.