TV interview with the promote-at-random researchers

RAI-3’s Telecamere program interviewed the three random-promotion researchers. Here is the full, glorious interview, in Italian: The trio — Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy — were awarded the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize in management for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random. Their published study (which they […]

The wisdom of Ig Nobel winner Ron Popeil

Ron Popeil is being showered with new recognition. Mr. Popeil was awarded the 1993 Ig Nobel Prize in consumer engineering for redefining the industrial revolution with such devices as the Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Mr. Microphone, and the Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler. [REFERENCE: “The Salesman of the Century : Inventing, Marketing, and Selling on TV: How I Did It and How […]

Ig folk: Language explorers on “Planet Word”

The BBC television program “Planet Word“, hosted by Stephen Fry, has featured interviews and demonstrations with at least two prominent Ig Nobel people. Richard Stephens, 2010 Ig Nobel Prize peace prize winner for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain, demonstrates his work, assisted by Stephen Fry and actor Brian Blessed, on episode 3. […]

Improbable Research