About the 2005 Ig™ Nobel Prize Ceremony, and related event
Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony |  |
Press contacts | GLAUBER'S SWEEPING SUCCESS: Roy Glauber, who for ten years has humbly swept paper airplanes on the stage at the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, has just won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics. In this photo taken at the 1998 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, Professor Glauber serenely sweeps while Nobel Laureates (left to right) Dudley Herschbach, William Lipscomb, and Richard Roberts wear gigantic shoes in tribute to the 1998 Ig Nobel Statistics Prize winners. Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow can be seen in the distance at left as he rushes to join his colleagues. [Photo by Eric Workman] (Click on image to enlarge it) |
The 2005 Ig™ Nobel Prize Ceremony
WHEN: Thursday, October 6, 2005, 7:30 pm.
(Note: the pre-ceremony concert and the webcast began at 7:15)
WHERE: Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
(Info about how to pahk your cah near Hahvud Yahd)
WHAT: The 15th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Ten new Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded in categories ranging from Physics, Medicine and Chemistry to Literature and Peace. The new winners traveled to the ceremony, at their own expense, from several continents. The Prizes were handed to them by a group of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel Laureates, all before a standing-room only audience of 1200 people. Full details and action pictures will appear in the Nov/Dec 2005 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.
(Click here to see details and video of last year's ceremony.)
TICKETS: were available from the Harvard Box Office at Holyoke Center.
AUDIENCE DELEGATIONS: Audience members who came to the ceremony with a group of six or more people could choose (by registering in advance) to be recognized as an official Delegation. Every delegation was officially celebrated at the beginning of the Ceremony, and the very most colorful delegations were chosen to parade ostentatiously into the theater.The registration deadline was Friday, September 30.
WEBCAST: The ceremony will be webcast live, beginning at 7:15 pm U.S. Eastern time. Click here to go to the webcast.
RADIO: The ceremony was recorded for later broadcast, on Friday, November 25, the day after Thanksgiving, on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation/ Science Friday with Ira Flatow."
THEME: Every year, the ceremony has a new theme. (The theme pertains to some of the goings-on at the ceremony, though not necessarily to any of the year's prize-winning achievements).
This year's theme: INFINITY.
ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS: In addition to the awarding of the Prizes, the ceremony was jam-packed with a variety of momentously inconsequential events. Among them:
- "INFINITE CHOPSTICKS" -- a special pre-ceremony concert by Nicholas Carstoiu
[NOTE: the concert began at 7:15 p.m., and the Ceremony began at 7:30 p.m.] - KEYNOTE ADDRESS by 2003 Ig Nobel Biology Prize winner Kees Moeliker (who documented the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck).
- RETURN APPEARANCE by 1996 Ig Nobel Art Prize winner Don Featherstone (creator of the plastic pink flamingo).
- The 24/7 LECTURES, in which several of the world's top thinkers each explained his or her subject twice:
FIRST: a complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS*
AND THEN: a clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS.
The Lecturers include: - Lynn Margulis
- Richard Jakowski
- Robin Abrahams
- William Lipscomb
- Rebecca German
- "THE COUNT OF INFINITY" -- the world premiere of the mini-opera
starring Margot Button, Simon Chaussé, Greg Neil, and the Nobel Laureates and other Distinguished Scientists - The Nobel Laureates who presented the Ig Nobel Prizes to the winners:
- Dudley Herschbach, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry,1986
- William Lipscomb, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1976
- Sheldon Glashow, Nobel Laureate in Physics,1979
- Robert Wilson, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1978
- ...and others, some also in person, others in electronic form
- The WIN-A-DATE-WITH-A-NOBEL-LAUREATE CONTEST
- Karen Hopkin, creator of the Studmuffins of Science Calendar
- The INFINITE LECTURES
- Gala Introduction of the Audience Delegations
- All speeches were brief, and thus especially delightful
- Portions of the ceremony were simultaneously translated into several languages, in a manner most pleasing.
- The Traditional "Welcome, Welcome" Speech
- The Traditional "Goodbye, Goodbye" Speech
- Other wondrous things.
* Time limits to be enforced by Mr. John Barrett, the Ig Nobel Referee
Last year's Peace Prize winner Daisuke Inoue -- the inventor of karaoke -- was serenaded at the 2004 Ceremony by Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach (left), Richard Roberts and William Lipscomb, and by Karen Hopkin. Dr. Hopkin is, among other things, famed for creating the Studmuffins of Science Calendar. Photo: Kees Moeliker. (Click on image to enlarge it)
POSTER: Click here for a free, downloadable 8.5" x 14" 2005 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony Poster.
Two days after the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, a related event:
The Ig Informal Lectures
Saturday, Oct 8, 2005. 1:00 pm.
The IG INFORMAL LECTURES will be held at MIT, in building 10, room 250 (77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge).
(Click here for a map and directions)
FREE ADMISSION.
 | An audience member, spellbound, at a previous year's Ig Informal Lectures. (Click on image to enlarge it) | |
A half-afternoon of improbably funny, informative, brief (five minutes each), high-spirited public lectures, in which the lecturers gleefully talked, and then answered questions from the audience. The lineup:
The new Ig Nobel Prize winners attempted to explain what they did, and why they did it .2003 Ig Nobel Biology Prize winner Kees Moeliker. briefly explained -- with photographs! -- how and why he documented the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck., And -- AND! -- he also showed a recent, startling discovery.
This free event was organized in cooperation with the MIT Press Bookstore, and was be accompanied by refreshments sposored by the Fulbright Academy of Science & Technology.
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), and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students (SPS), and the new book Ig Nobel Prizes 2, published by E.P. Dutton, New York, ISBN 0525947531.
The live Internet telecast is made possible with generous assistance from the Harvard Extension School.and from Real.com and Apple.
The Ig Informal Lectures are co-sponsored by the MIT Press Bookstore.
About the Ceremony:
Annals of Improbable Research editor Marc Abrahams (+1) 617-491-4437.
[On October 6, 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.]
About the Books:
U.S.A.: The Ig Nobel Prizes 2, published by Dutton Books; contact Beth Parker, (+1) 212-366-2213.
