Another Bill Lipscomb moment, from the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, as reported by the Harvard Gazette:
Ig Nobel festivities traditionally include the Heisenberg Certainty Lectures. These 30-second lectures are named in honor of physicist Werner Heisenberg’s infamous “uncertainty principle,” which states that it is impossible to accurately measure both the position and momentum of an elementary particle at the same instant.
Lipscomb’s lecture was dedicated to politicians. “If your position is everywhere,” he warned, “your momentum is zero.”
BONUS: Listen to highlights from that year’s ceremony, broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Science Friday” program.
BONUS: This photo was taken at the previous year’s Ig Nobel ceremony. Professor Lipscomb, on clarinet, teamed up with jazz harpist / singer Deborah Henson-Conant and singer/triangulist Catharine David at ceremony’s end. [Photo: Stephen Powell / Improbable Research].
