Ever since I heard of the Ignobel Prize(pronounced as ignoble), many years ago, from Dr Karl Kruszelnicki on TripleJ, I have always kept a lookout for the annual award winners.
Huh? (yes, research in the word “huh” won an Ignobel Prize in Literature for 2015)
Never heard of the Ignobel Prize?
From it’s founder’s website, Improbable Research says :-
“The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, and then THINK. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.”
To give you an example of Ignoble achievements, this year’s winners include :-
- Chemistry – how to unboil an egg
- Physics : nearly all mammals empty their urinary bladders in about 21 secs (plus or minus 13 secs)
- Literature : for discovering that the word “huh?” (or its equivalent) seems to exist in every human language – and for not being quite sure why
- Biology : for observing that when you attach a weighted stick to the rear end of a chicken, the chicken then walks in a manner similar to that in which dinosaurs are thought to have walked
Yes, some ground breaking research there, eh? 🙂
Now, just in case you think it is all a waste of time and money, you should know that some winners of the Ignobel Prize have gone on to win the other one, the Nobel Prize, ok ok ok, ONE of the winners of the 2000 Ignobel Prize in Physics (for magnetically levitating a frog), went on to win the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research into graphene.
The previous longtime “Keeper of the Broom” at the Ignobel presentation ceremony, Professor Roy Glauber, finally won his own Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005.
Seriously, just look at this year’s Chemistry prize – unboiling an egg has HUGE implications for chickens … .no … no …. no…. I meant for cancer research. The implications for reversing damage to proteins is a big step in our knowledge towards curing cancer.
The Annual Ignobel Prize ceremony is also attended by many Nobel Prize laureates.
Ig Nobel Prize Winner Dr. Elena Bodnar demonstrates her invention (a brassiere that can quickly convert into a pair of protective face masks) assisted by Nobel laureates Wolfgang Ketterle (left), Orhan Pamuk, and Paul Krugman (right). Photo credit: Alexey Eliseev, 2009 Ig Nobel Ceremony
Go on, check out this year’s winners, have a laugh and then check out previous winners 🙂
http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/
Other links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize
The achievers of Nobel Prize went through sweats and tears. The Nobel Prize confirm their contribution to the world. Hope more guys can get the Nobel Prize 🙂
The winners of the Ignobel Prize have probably also worked just as hard.
Unboiling an egg is harder than you think. It could be the first Ignobel Prize winner to win a Nobel Prize.
Quite a number of articles and video mentioned unboil egg. It’s worthy to have a research on this topic.
Here’s a little bit more on the guy who led the team.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/flinders-university-chemistry-professor-colin-raston-awarded-ig-nobel-prize-for-research-that-showed-how-to-unboil-an-egg/story-fn5fsgyc-1227532657393