The 26th First Annual Ig® Nobel Prize Ceremony & Lectures

 

 

@ImprobResearch, and #IgNobel

 

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FIGS (Friends of the Ig) — Generous supporters of the 2016 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, who are helping the world laugh then think:

 

This 26th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will include many improbable things:

• Ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners will be announced and introduced
• The winners will physically receive their prizes, and a handshake, from genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel laureates:
  • Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986)
  • Rich Roberts (physiology or medicine, 1993)
  • Eric Maskin  (economics, 2007)
  • Roy Glauber (physics, 2005)
  • Jerome Friedman (physics, 1990)
  • and perhaps others

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• The theme of this year’s ceremony (though not necessarily of the achievements that win prizes) is TIME.
• Pre-Pre-Ceremony Concert in the transept (lobby): The Boston Squeezebox Ensemble (BSE): Thomas Michel, Colin Ferguson, Patrick Yacono, Betty Widersky, David Brancazio, Rebecca Cooper, Jooyeon June, Koo Sari Kalin
• Two Moments of Science, by performing chemists Daniel Rosenberg, Isabelle Rosenberg, and Michael Skuhersky
• The 24/7 LECTURES, in which several of the world’s top thinkers each explains her or his 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
  This year’s 24/7 Lecturers and their topics:
  • Patricia Brennan (biologist renowned for studies on the morphological evolution of reproductive structures): Duck Genital Morphology
  • Nicole Sharp (creator of FYFD, the world’s most popular web site about fluid dynamics): Fluid Dynamics
  • Rich Roberts (Nobel laureate, physiology or medicine): Clock Genes
  • Dudley Herschbach (Nobel laureate, chemistry): Time

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• Premier of the mini-opera “The Last Second“, about a plot to secretly add an extra leap second to the world’s clocks, and secretly reap the financial benefits.
  
  • Music by Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti, Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, and Frédéric François Chopin. Story and words by Marc Abrahams
  • Directed by Maria Ferrante and Robin Abrahams
  • Starring Maria Ferrante and Scott Taylor
  • Featuring The Clock Chorus (Ellen Friend, Abby Schiff, Jean Cummings, Sue Wellington, Daniel Rosenberg, Kevin McCaughey, Michael Skuhersky, Ted Sharpe (chorus wrangler), John Jarcho, Fred Tsai, Erika Hutchinson, Jan Hadland, Kettly Benoit). The chorus ranks will be swelled, in the opera’s final act, by the Nobel laureates
  • Backed by the Concentrated Forces of Nature, a distilled orchestra composed entirely of Harvard Medical School researchers Patrick Yacono and Thomas Michel
  • (Prior to Act 1) Special Time Micro-Lecture by Jenny Hoffman (Harvard physics professor) on “What’s a leap second, and why do we create them?”
  • (Prior to Act 2) Special Time Micro-Lecture by John Lowe (NIST time scientist) on “How scientists decide when to create a leap second, and how we do it.”
  • (Prior to Act 3) Special Time Micro-Lecture by Eric Maskin (Nobel laureate in economics) on “The kinds of financial mischief that could be done during an unannounced extra leap second.”

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• The Tick Tock Toe Competition, between
  • a brain surgeon (Pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Joseph Madsen of Boston Children’s Hospital, assisted by neurosurgical operating room nurse Judie Jackson)
  • a NASA scientist (Lisa Danielson)
  • a team of three Nobel laureates (Rich Roberts, Eric Maskin, Dudley Herschbach)
  • a roller derby team (Emily Pawelski, Corianne Kenty and Jamie Bartholomay)

• Ceremonial bows from several returning past Ig Nobel Prize winners
• Fifteenth Wedding Anniversary visit and ceremonial bow by NASA scientists Lisa Danielson and Will Stefanov, who were married onstage in a 60-second-long ceremony during the 2001 Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. (NOTE: That was the first wedding ever performed in Sanders Theatre.)
• Ceremonial music by Nicholas Carstoiu and The Ig Leaves
• Karen Hopkin, creator of the Studmuffins of Science Calendar
• Salutes to the Audience Delegations
• The Minordomos (Chris Deter, Eliza Kosoy, Julia Lunetta, Peaco Todd, Sylvia Rosenberg, Natasha Rosenberg, Pooja Usgaonkar, Emma Liddell) will make most things on stage run smoothly
• Two grand Paper Airplane Deluges
• Speeches will be kept brief, thanks to an experimental human-mechanical mechanism
• The Traditional “Welcome, Welcome” Speech
• The Traditional “Goodbye, Goodbye” Speech
• Other wondrous things

The ceremony also celebrates the publication of two books: This Is Improbable Too, and The Ig Nobel Cookbook (volume 1)

** Time limits will be enforced by the the referee, Mr. John Barrett

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