science

List of Ig Nobel Prize winners

List of Ig Nobel Prize winners is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand List of Ig Nobel Prize winners rather than just read about it. In short: A parody of the Nobel Prizes, the Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded each year in mid-September, around the time the recipients of the genuine Nobel Prizes are announced, for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Commenting on the 2006 awards, Marc Abrahams, editor of Annals of Improbable Research and co-sponsor of the awards, said that "[t]he prizes are intended to celebrate the unusua…

Key takeaways

List of Ig Nobel Prize winners belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect List of Ig Nobel Prize winners to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of List of Ig Nobel Prize winners from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A parody of the Nobel Prizes, the Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded each year in mid-September, around the time the recipients of the genuine Nobel Prizes are announced, for ten achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". Commenting on the 2006 awards, Marc Abrahams, editor of Annals of Improbable Research and co-sponsor of the awards, said that "[t]he prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative, and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology". All prizes are awarded for real achievements, except for three in 1991 and one in 1994, due to an erroneous press release.

1991 The awards were presented on October 3. Each winner received a medal shaped like a frying pan that made a screaming noise when shaken and Cambridge parking passes that were valid from 3 a.m. – 4 a.m. the day after Christmas.

Biology: Robert Klark Graham for his development of the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank that accepts donations only from Nobel laureates and Olympians. Chemistry: Jacques Benveniste, prolific proselytizer and dedicated correspondent of Nature, for his persistent "discovery" that water, H2O, is an intelligent liquid, and for demonstrating to his satisfaction that water is able to remember events long after all traces of those events have vanished (see water memory, his proposed explanation for homeopathy). Economics: Michael Milken, father of the junk bond. Education: US vice president at the time Dan Quayle, "consumer of time and occupier of space" for demonstrating, better than anyone else, the need for science education. Literature: Erich von Däniken, visionary raconteur and author of Chariots of the Gods?, for explaining how human civilization was influenced by ancient astronauts from outer space. Medicine: Alan Kligerman, "deviser of digestive deliverance, vanquisher of vapor", and inventor of Beano, for his pioneering work with anti-gas liquids that prevent bloat, gassiness, discomfort, and embarrassment. Peace: Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb and first champion of the Star Wars weapons system, "for his lifelong efforts to change the meaning of peace as we know it". Chance: John Cage, popularized chance music and became well renowned for his work on it.

Apocryphal achievements The first nomination also featured three fictional recipients for fictional achievements.

Interdisciplinary Research: Josiah S. Carberry of Brown University for his work in psychoceramics, the study of "cracked pots". Pedestrian Technology: Paul DeFanti, "wizard of structures and crusader for public safety, for his invention of the Buckybonnet, a geodesic fashion structure that pedestrians wear to protect their heads and preserve their composure". Physics: Thomas Kyle, for his discovery of "the heaviest element in the universe, Administratium".

1992 Archaeology: Éclaireurs de France (a French Scouting organization), removers of graffiti, for damaging the prehistoric paintings of two bisons in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel. Art: Presented jointly to Jim Knowlton for his anatomy poster "Penises of the Animal Kingdom," and to the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts for encouraging Mr. Knowlton to extend his work in the form of a pop-up book. Biology: Dr Cecil Jacobson, relentlessly generous sperm donor and prolific patriarch of sperm banking, for devising a simple, single-handed method of "quality control". Chemistry: Ivette Bassa, constructor of colourful colloids, for her role in the crowning achievement of 20th century chemistry, the synthesis of bright blue Jell-O. Economics: The investors of Lloyd's of London, heirs to 300 years of dull prudent management, for their bold attempt to ensure disaster by refusing to pay for their company's losses. Literature: Yuri Struchkov, unstoppable author from the Institute of Organoelement Compounds in Moscow, for the 948 scientific papers he published between the years 1981 and 1990, averaging more than one every 3.9 days. Medicine: F. Kanda, E. Yagi, M. Fukuda, K. Nakajima, T. Ohta, and O. Nakata of the Shiseido Research Center in Yokohama, for their pioneering research study "Elucidation of Chemical Compounds Responsible for Foot Malodour," especially for their conclusion that people who think they have foot odor do, and those who don't, don't. Nutrition: The utilizers of SPAM, "courageous consumers of canned comestibles", for 54 years of undiscriminating digestion. Peace: Daryl Gates, former police chief of the City of Los Angeles, for his uniquely compelling methods of "bringing people together". Physics: David Chorley and Doug Bower, "lions of low-energy physics", for their circular contributions to field theory based on the geometrical destruction of English crops.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with List of Ig Nobel Prize winners

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what List of Ig Nobel Prize winners claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to List of Ig Nobel Prize winners before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about List of Ig Nobel Prize winners ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of List of Ig Nobel Prize winners

In research: List of Ig Nobel Prize winners appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses List of Ig Nobel Prize winners in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: List of Ig Nobel Prize winners is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Ig Nobel Prize, Lists of award winners, Science and technology award winners, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for List of Ig Nobel Prize winners outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study List of Ig Nobel Prize winners in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what List of Ig Nobel Prize winners means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain List of Ig Nobel Prize winners out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is List of Ig Nobel Prize winners in simple terms?

Why does List of Ig Nobel Prize winners matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study List of Ig Nobel Prize winners?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on List of Ig Nobel Prize winners.