The 2010
Ig® Nobel Prize Ceremony & Lectures

All speeches will be kept delightfully brief, thanks in part to eight-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo. This short video shows highlights of various Miss Sweetie Poos doing their job at previous Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies.

The Ceremony

Ig Informal Lectures
/ Previous years' details / Press contacts /

The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
Thursday, September 30, 7:30 pm.

Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

The 20th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will introduce ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners. The winners will travel to the ceremony, at their own expense, from several continents. The Prizes will be handed to them by a group of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel Laureates, assisted by a large number of assorted Ig personnel, all before a perpetually standing-room only audience. The ceremony will include many other delights—see details below.

SCHEDULE:
6:45 pm. — Boston Squeezebox Ensemble microbeconcert, in the theater lobby
7:15 pm. — Pathogenic Bacterial Pianoconcerto begins
7:30 pm. — Ceremony proper begins
Click for a map and directions, or to learn how to pahk your cah near Hahvud Yahd.

TICKETS

1) A small number of partial view seats are still available from the Harvard Box Office, online and at Holyoke Center in Harvard Square.

2) A limited number of additional tickets will go on sale after the start of the school year. Those will become available THURSDAY, SEPT 9, at NOON. Those tickets may be purchased in person at the Harvard Box Office, 1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Holyoke Center Arcade, Cambridge, or by phone 617-496-2222 only —— no internet sales. Ticket sales will be limited to 2 per person. We expect a high demand for them, please plan accordingly.

Bacteria:

All ticket-holders will receive free bacteria! (Please hold onto your ticket stub.)
AUDIENCE DELEGATIONS: Audience members who come to the ceremony with a group of six or more people can choose (by registering in advance) to be recognized as an official Delegation. Every delegation will be officially celebrated at the beginning of the Ceremony. The very most colorful delegations will be chosen to parade ostentatiously into the theater.

To Register as a Delegation:
FIRST, purchase your tickets.
THEN, register with Louise Sacco, the Grand Panjandrum of the Delegations, at 781-444-6757, or by email <LouiseSacco AT gmail.com>.

The registration deadline is Wednesday, September 22, 2010.

LIVE WEBCAST

Details to be announced.

Webcast-watching parties:

Organize your own webcast-watching party, or learn about a party near you. Details to be announced here soon. If your party will be open to the public, get in touch with Ig Nobel Global Webcast Party Coordinator Neil Gussman at (+1) 717-314-2494, or by email <ngussman@improbable.com>

FIGS (Friends of the Ig) — Generous supporters of the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, who are helping the world laugh then think:

Google Ecolab

 

 

 

 

 

 

2009 physics prize acceptance speech and Miss Sweetie Poo

Photo from last year's ceremony: 2009 Ig Nobel chemistry prize winners Miguel Apátiga (dark jacket) and Javier Morales (light jacket) conclude their one-minute acceptance speech in timely fashion, thanks to a reminder from eight-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo. (The scientists placed the hat on Miss Sweetie Poo's head in response to her reminder.) Apátiga, Morales and Victor Castano were honored for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila. At right, several of the nine Nobel laureates who handed out the prizes and shook hands with the winners.

Evelyn Evelyn

Evelyn Evelyn will perform a special, brief microbial miniconcert during this year's ceremony. They will be accompanied by their bacteria.

Young Jump manga

Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, is the hero in a two-episode manga published in Young Jump, Japan's largest manga magazine.

CEREMONY DETAILS

What to expect: Imagine every ceremony you have ever had to endure. Loop them all together, at high speed, upside down. Add ten Ig Nobel Prize winners. That's the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony.

Theme: The theme of this year's ceremony (though not necessarily of the individual prizes) is: BACTERIA.

In addition to the awarding of the 2010 Ig Nobel Prizes, the ceremony will include a variety of momentously inconsequential events:

* Time limits to be enforced by Mr. John Barrett, the Ig Nobel Referee

Radio: The ceremony will be recorded for later broadcast, in highlight form, (on Friday, November 26, the day after Thanksgiving) on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation/ Science Friday with Ira Flatow."

A Look Back: Want to dwell on the past? Click here to see details and video of last year's (2009) ceremony, here to see the Improbable Research special magazine issue about that ceremony.

Downloadable poster: Click on the image at right for a downloadable 2010 Ig Nobel Ceremony Poster in spiffy PDF format. The poster is a great way to increase Ig Nobel and bacterial awareness among friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, and complete strangers.

2010 Ig Nobel ceremony poster

The Ig Informal Lectures
Saturday, Oct 2, 2010, 1:00 pm.

MIT Building 10, Room 250
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

(Click here for a map and directions)

FREE ADMISSION -- but seating is limited

A half-afternoon of improbably funny, informative, informal, brief public lectures and demonstrations:

And everyone will be available for you to talk with, both before and after the lectures.

This free event is organized in cooperation with the MIT Press Bookstore.

SPECIAL THANKS TO...

All Ig Nobel Prizes activities are organized by the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association (HRSFA), the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students (SPS), the Harvard Computer Society, and the book The Man Who Tried to Clone Himself, published by Plume Books, New York, ISBN 0452287723.

The Ig Informal Lectures are co-sponsored by the MIT Press Bookstore.

PRESS CONTACTS:

About the Ceremony:
Annals of Improbable Research editor Marc Abrahams, (+1) 617-491-4437
Publicity director Jayson Zeeman, (+1) 248-464-9599
Ig Nobel facilitator Lisa Birk
[On September 30, the day of the ceremony, if you can't reach anyone at Improbable Research, please instead call the Harvard News Office, (+1) 617-495-1585]