Almost all scientific discoveries come — directly or indirectly — from things that people at first thought to be strange, weird, crazy, stupid, and/or just plain wrong. This essay looks at a few of the zillions of examples: “Oddball Science: Why Studies of Unusual Evolutionary Phenomena Are Crucial,” Patricia L.R. Brennan, Duncan J. Irschick, Norman […]
Category: Arts and Science
Research and other stuff that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
The Blowhard Problem
Sometimes a citation can sound like a metaphor: “Asymptotic study of the blowhard problem for the supersonic flow of a gas past sharp slender bodies,” A.M. Antonov, and Yu A. Belov, USSR Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Physics, vol. 16, no. 6, 1976, pp. 227-232.
The Official Ig Nobel Card Game Is Born, Improbably!
Yes, there are card games that make people LAUGH, and yes, there are card games that make people THINK. Now, new to the world, there is an official card game based on the Ig Nobel Prizes, which are all about research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK. Ig Nobel: Improbable Research, The Game is the […]
Some numbers about some words [specifically the 24/7 Lectures]
David Kessler, stage manager of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony, took a statistical wander through the archives of the 24/7 Lectures. These little lectures happen as part of the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. In each 24/7 Lecture, one of the world’s great thinkers explains their topic twice: First, a complete, technical description, in 24 seconds […]



