Ig Nobel Prize

The Ig Nobels were created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Irreproducible Results, who has been the master of ceremonies at all awards ceremonies. Awards were presented at that time for discoveries "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced". Ten prizes are awarded each year in many categories, including the Nobel Prize categories of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, economics, and peace, but also other categories such as public health, engineering, biology, and interdisciplinary research. The Ig Nobel Prizes recognize genuine achievements, with the exception of three prizes awarded in the first year to fictitious scientists Josiah S. Carberry, Paul DeFanti,[http://tech.mit.edu/V111/N41/jackso.41o.html "Ig Nobel prizes display wit, fun, drunks"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230211052256/http://tech.mit.edu/V111/N41/jackso.41o.html |date=February 11, 2023 }}, The Tech, vol. 111, issue 41 and Thomas Kyle.{{Cite web |date=1991-10-05 |title=Ig Nobel Prizes Go to Those Likely to Be Overlooked : Lampoon: MIT researchers create the new series of awards, named after the 'inventor of soda pop.' Among the first winners are Vice President Dan Quayle and imprisoned junk-bond king Michael Milken. |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-05-mn-3178-story.html |access-date=2022-12-02 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}

The awards are sometimes criticism via satire, as in the two awards given for homeopathy research, prizes in "science education" to the Kansas State Department of Education and Colorado State Board of Education for their stance regarding the teaching of evolution, and the prize awarded to Social Text after the Sokal affair. Most often, however, they draw attention to scientific articles that have some humorous or unexpected aspect. Examples range from the discovery that the presence of humans tends to sexually arouse ostriches, to the statement that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements for being the location of Hell, to research on the "five-second rule", a tongue-in-cheek belief that food dropped on the floor will not become contaminated if it is picked up within five seconds.{{cite web| url = https://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html| title = Improbable.com Ig Nobel Past Winners| access-date = July 10, 2019| archive-date = September 6, 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190906104917/https://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html| url-status = dead}}

Sir Andre Geim, who had been awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for levitating a frog by magnetism, was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics in 2010 for his work with the electromagnetic properties of graphene. He is the only individual, as of 2025, to have received both a Nobel and an Ig Nobel.{{cite news |last1=Overbye |first1=Dennis |author1-link=Dennis Overbye |title=Physics Nobel Honors Work on Ultra-Thin Carbon |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/science/06nobel.html |url-access=subscription |access-date=March 30, 2023 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=October 5, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140924123720/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/science/06nobel.html?pagewanted=all |archive-date=2014-09-24}}{{cbignore}}

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The prizes are mostly presented by Nobel laureates, originally at a ceremony in a lecture hall at MIT but moved in 1994 to the Sanders Theater at Harvard University for many years. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was held fully online in the years of 2020 through 2023.{{Cite web|date=2020-05-19|title=2020 Ceremony|url=https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/the-30th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony/|access-date=2020-12-27|website=Improbable Research|archive-date=December 7, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201207075555/https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/the-30th-first-annual-ig-nobel-prize-ceremony/|url-status=dead}}{{Cite web|date=2020-09-18|title=What is the Ig Nobel Prize and who won it this year?|url=https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/18/what-is-the-ig-nobel-prize-and-who-won-it-this-year-13289325/|access-date=2020-12-27|website=Metro|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=The Ig Nobel Awards Go Virtual|url=https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/ignobels-2020/|access-date=2020-12-27|website=Science Friday|language=en-US}} The ceremony returned to MIT in September 2024.{{Cite web |date=2024-07-07 |title=The 34th First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony |url=https://improbable.com/ig/archive/2024-ceremony/ |access-date=2024-09-13 |website=improbable.com |language=en-US}}

The event contains a number of running jokes, including Miss Sweetie Poo, a little girl who repeatedly cries out, "Please stop: I'm bored", in a high-pitched voice if speakers go on too long.{{cite news |first=Kees |last=Moeliker |author-link=Kees Moeliker |title=Infinity and so much more |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/oct/11/highereducation.research1 |publisher=Education.guardian.co.uk |date=October 11, 2005 |access-date=November 17, 2018 |location=London}} The awards ceremony is traditionally closed with the words: "If you didn't win a prize—and especially if you did—better luck next year!"{{Cite report |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/ig-nobel-prizes-honor-zombie-spiders-rock-licking-scientists-and-clever-commode |title=Ig Nobel Prizes honor zombie spiders, rock-licking scientists, and a clever commode |last=Jacobs |first=Phie |date=2023-09-14 |doi=10.1126/science.adk8631 |language=en}}

The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard–Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard–Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.{{cite web| url = https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/| title = Improbable.com: "About the Ig Nobel prize"| access-date = July 8, 2019| archive-date = June 4, 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190604012502/https://www.improbable.com/ig/| url-status = dead}}

Throwing paper planes onto the stage is a long-standing tradition. For many years Professor Roy J. Glauber swept the stage clean of the airplanes as the official "Keeper of the Broom". Glauber could not attend the 2005 awards because he was traveling to Stockholm to claim a genuine Nobel Prize in Physics.{{cite web |url=https://www.improbable.com/2018/12/27/sad-news-roy-glauber-paper-airplane-sweeper-and-physicist-of-light-is-gone/ |work=Improbable.com |title=Roy Glauber, paper airplane sweeper, is gone |date=2018-12-27}}

The "Parade of Ignitaries" into the hall includes supporting groups. At the 1997 ceremonies, a team of "cryogenic sex researchers" distributed a pamphlet titled "Safe Sex at Four Kelvin."{{cite magazine |url=https://www.wired.com/1997/10/a-gala-night-for-weird-science/ |first=Scott |last=Kirsner |title=A Gala Night for Weird Science |magazine=Wired }} Delegates from the Museum of Bad Art are often on hand to display some pieces from their collection.{{Cite web |last=Powell |first=Alvin |date=2000-10-12 |title=Ig Nobels flush out the world's top brains :Bad science gets good reputation at 10th annual prize ceremony |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2000/10/ig-nobels-flush-out-the-worlds-top-brains-bad-science-gets-good-reputation-at-10th-annual-prize-ceremony/ |access-date=2024-07-17 |website=Harvard Gazette |language=en-US}}

The ceremony is recorded and broadcast on National Public Radio in the US and is shown live over the Internet. The recording is broadcast each year, on the Friday after US Thanksgiving, on the public radio program Science Friday. In recognition of this, the audience chants the name of the radio show's host, Ira Flatow.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}}

Two books have been published with write-ups on some winners: The Ig Nobel Prize2002, US paperback {{ISBN|0-452-28573-9}}, UK paperback {{ISBN|0-7528-4261-7}} and The Ig Nobel Prize 2,2005, US hardcover {{ISBN|0-525-94912-7}}, UK hardcover {{ISBN|0-7528-6461-0}} the latter of which was later retitled The Man Who Tried to Clone Himself.{{cite book |isbn=9780452287723 |title=The Man Who Tried to Clone Himself |first=Marc |last=Abrahams |publisher=Plume |year=2006 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/manwhotriedtoclo0000abra }}

An Ig Nobel Tour has been an annual part of National Science week in the United Kingdom since 2003.{{cite web |url=https://www.improbable.com/navstrip/airshows/info/Ig-Nobel_UK_hosting_info.pdf |title=The Ig Nobel Tour of the UK |access-date=November 17, 2018}} The tour has also traveled to Australia several times, Aarhus University in Denmark in April 2009, Italy, and the Netherlands.{{citation needed|date=April 2019}}

A September 2009 article in The National titled "A noble side to Ig Nobels" says that, although the Ig Nobel Awards are veiled criticism of trivial research, history shows that trivial research sometimes leads to important breakthroughs.{{cite web |first=Robert |last=Matthews |url=https://www.thenational.ae/uae/science/a-noble-side-to-ig-nobels-1.532698 |title=A Noble Side to Ig Nobels |website=The National |date=September 27, 2009 |access-date=November 17, 2018}} For instance, in 2006, a study showing that one of the mosquitoes that can carry malaria (Anopheles gambiae) is attracted equally to the smell of Limburger cheese and the smell of human feet{{cite journal |first=Bart |last=Knols |title=On human odour, malaria mosquitoes, and Limburger cheese |journal=Lancet |volume=348 |issue=9037 |page=1322 |date=November 9, 1996 |doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(05)65812-6 |pmid=8909415 |s2cid=12571262 |url=https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(05)65812-6.pdf |access-date=November 17, 2018}} earned the Ig Nobel Prize in the area of biology. As a direct result of these findings, traps baited with this cheese have been placed in strategic locations to combat the epidemic of malaria in Africa.{{cite web |url=https://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2006 |title=The 2006 Ig Nobel Prize Winners |publisher=Improbable.com |access-date=November 17, 2018}}{{cite journal |journal=Parasitology Today |volume=12 |issue=4 |date=April 1996 |pages=159–161 |title=Limburger cheese as an attractant for the malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae s.s. |first1=Bart |last1=Knols |first2=Ruurd |last2=De Jong |doi=10.1016/0169-4758(96)10002-8 |pmid=15275226 }} Andre Geim, before sharing the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on graphene, shared the Physics Ig Nobel in 2000 with Michael Berry for the magnetic levitation of a frog, which by 2022 was reportedly part of the inspiration for China's lunar gravity research facility.{{cite web |title=China building "Artificial Moon" that simulates low gravity with magnets|url=https://futurism.com/the-byte/china-artificial-moon-magnets|website=Futurism.com|date=January 12, 2022 |publisher=Recurrent Ventures|access-date=17 January 2022 |quote=Interestingly, the facility was partly inspired by previous research conducted by Russian physicist Andrew Geim in which he floated a frog with a magnet. The experiment earned Geim the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics, a satirical award given to unusual scientific research. It’s cool that a quirky experiment involving floating a frog could lead to something approaching an honest-to-God antigravity chamber.}}{{cite web |author=Stephen Chen|title=China has built an artificial moon that simulates low-gravity conditions on Earth|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3162972/china-has-built-artificial-moon-simulates-low-gravity-conditions|publisher=South China Morning Post|access-date=17 January 2022 |date=12 January 2022 |quote=It is said to be the first of its kind and could play a key role in the country’s future lunar missions. Landscape is supported by a magnetic field and was inspired by experiments to levitate a frog.}}

• List of Ig Nobel Prize winners
• Darwin Awards
• Golden Raspberry Awards – awards for bad movies
• Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest – an award for bad writing
• Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year – an award for books with unusual titles
• Pigasus Award – exposing parapsychological, paranormal, or psychic frauds
• Golden Fleece Award – award for waste of government funds; often awarded for government-paid research considered frivolous or wasteful
• Foot in Mouth Award – an award presented by the Plain English Campaign for "a baffling comment by a public figure"
• "British scientists" – Russian joke regarding absurd news reports about scientific discoveries

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• {{official website|https://improbable.com/ig/about-the-ig-nobel-prizes/}}
• [https://improbable.com/ig/winners/ Index to list of past winners]
• {{cite web |publisher= TED Talk |first= Marc |last= Abrahams |url= https://www.ted.com/talks/marc_abrahams_a_science_award_that_makes_you_laugh_then_think |title= A science award that makes you laugh, then think |date= Sep 2014 }}

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Category:1991 establishments in the United States

Category:Awards established in 1991

Category:Harvard University

Category:Ironic and humorous awards

Category:Humour in science