The 21st First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes:

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 at previous ceremonies.

The 2011 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony

Thursday, September 29
Sanders Theater, Harvard University

The 21st First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony introduced ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners. Each has done something that makes people laugh then think. The 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, assisted by a large number of assorted Ig personnel, all before a perpetually standing-room only audience. The ceremony included many other delights —see details below. (And For the latest Ig Nobel news, see the blog.)

Live Webcast

The ceremony was webcast live, here’s the full recording:

Or, if you’re in a hurry, instead watch this brief teaser:

Downloadable Poster & Program

Download your very own PDF copies of the 2011 Ceremony’s Spiffy Poster and IgBill (program), identical to the ones we print for the ceremony. The poster in particular is a great way to increase Ig Nobel and universal awareness among friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, and complete strangers.

Supporters

FIGS (Friends of the Ig) — Generous supporters of the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, who are helping the world laugh then think:

Webcast Watching Parties

In addition to the many individual Ig Nobel webcast watching parties that happen around the world, there are a few larger, official ones. If you would like to organize such a party we would like to hear about it and help you publicize it.
This year, there were broadcast watching parties in Philadelphia and many other places. The parties were coordinated by Ig Nobel Global Webcast Party Coordinator Neil Gussman.

Ceremony Details

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.

The theme of this year’s ceremony (though not necessarily of the individual prizes) is: CHEMISTRY

In addition to the awarding of the 2011 Ig Nobel Prizes, the ceremony will include a variety of momentously inconsequential events. Among them:

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

Who’s Who:

Some of the ceremony organizers and participants:

If You Are Coming to Sanders Theatre…

WHERE: If you are walking, driving, T-ing, biking, or running to Sanders Theatre, you may want some directions. Here are: (1) a map and directions; and (2) the secret of how to pahk your cah near Hahvud Yahd.

WHAT TO WEAR: We suggest you wear clothing. Clothing that is, like you, colorful. People like yourself (or in some cases, very unlike yourself) in distant places, watching the broadcast and seeing occasional glimpses of the Sanders Theatre audience, will thrill to the panoply of colors, styles, and improbable accoutrements. This is the night to unearth your old wedding gown, uniform, suit of armor, labcoat or longjohns.

WHAT TO BRING: Paper, paper, paper. Paper to make into paper airplanes. Additional paper to give to those around you who may have forgotten to bring their own paper, and who as a consequence of their own neglect are forlornly wishing they could join in the thrill and intellectual romance of making and throwing paper airplanes. SAFETY FIRST, please! Paper airplanes should only be thrown at the safety-equipment-laden individual onstage who is the Designated Paper Airplane Target. Paper airplanes may only be made of paper.

NOTE: There will be two (2) designated Paper Airplane Deluge periods, one at the very start of the ceremony, the other at the ceremony’s midpoint.

The Ig Informal Lectures
Saturday, Oct 1, 2011, 1:00 pm.
MIT, Building 26, Room 100

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

  • The new Ig Nobel Prize winners will attempt to explain what they did, and why they did it
  • Select past winners will tell us about some of their new adventures
  • Everyone will be available for you to talk with, both before and after the lectures

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

Special Thanks To…

All Ig Nobel Prize 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), the Harvard Computer Society, and the book “The Man Who Tried to Clone Himself”, published by Plume Books, New York, ISBN 0452287723.

Improbable Research