Category: Ig Nobel

George Nichols, who helped give birth to Murphy’s Law, will make an exceedingly rare public appearance tomorrow night (Jan 27) at Caltech. He was head of the project at Edwards Air Force Base in California where, in 1949, he, Colonel John Paul Stapp, and Captain Edward A. Murphy, Jr. jointly, if disjointedly, gave rise to […]

“Ode on the Mammoth Cheese” gained new prominence when John W. Trinkaus accepted his Ig Nobel Literature Prize in 2003. Trinkaus was presented with a special framed copy of the famous 1884 cheese poem, a copy signed by four Nobel Laureates. Read about it in the Nov/Dec 2003 issue of the magazine, or read it […]

The most nanoscopically sweeping and comprensive — and according to some critics, the most impassioned — Nano-Lecture delivered at the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony was by Eric Lander, on the topic THE GENOME. See it here. This is the fifth of the five Nano-Lectures weve posted. All five of the Nano-Lectures can be heard […]

Perhaps the most definitionally piercing Nano-Lecture delivered at the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony was by Harvard College senior Genevieve Reynolds, on the topic EDUCATION. See it here. This is the fourth of the five Nano-Lectures we’ll be posting.

Kees Moeliker, who won the 2003 Ig Nobel Biology Prize for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck, published a photo-rich diary of his Ig experience. See it here. Aline McKenzie of the Dallas Morning News personally tested Bow-Lingual, the automatic dog-to-human-language translation device, the inventors of which received […]

At the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Nobel Laureate William Lipscomb delivered an especially animated Nano-Lecture, on the topic CHEMISTRY. See it here. This is the third of the five Nano-Lectures we’ll be posting. The Nano-Lecture recalled Mike Stanfill’s magnificent tribute to Tom Lehrer, which was part of the 2002 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony.

Some call him “Z.” Who is he,that handsome young man with the intent gaze, and why is he holding a rat, and what fortune became him many years later? The answer is here, the honor is described here.

High school student Emily Yuan delivered her Nano-Lecture on the topic MEMORY. This is the second of the five Nano-Lectures (from the recent Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony) that we’ll be posting. The accompanying photo appears in the special Ig Nobel issue of the magazine.

Lene Hau’s Nano-Lecture about SLOW LIGHT is now posted. Over the next week or two, we will also post the other Nano-Lectures that were presented at the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. What is a Nano-Lecture? For those unfamiliar with this tiny concept, here’s the official description: Each Nano-Lecture was on an assigned topic. The […]