Prize-winners have proposition for you! (Ig-Nobels)

This is my weekly newspaper column for Oct. 13. Just for fun this week. Comments welcome. Also available online at:
www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/10/13/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt


By Rich Lewis, October 13, 2005

Those snoots in Sweden handed out most of their Nobel prizes last week, but really, who cares?

Oh, it's a nice prize — what with the $1.3 million in cash and bragging rights and all — but not the kind of thing you're going to chat about at the hairdresser's or on the driving range. I mean, how excited are you that John Hall and Theodor Hansch carted off half the prize in physics for "contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"?

Well, maybe the comb thing could come up at the hairdresser's, but I don't think that's what they're talking about.

No, the prizes that really matter aren't the Nobels, but the Ig-Nobels (www.improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2005), which have been awarded annually since 1991 to honor "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced."

Iggies are given in 10 categories (compared to a measly six Nobels) and, believe me, they go for things that really affect your life. For example, Don Featherstone won the Ig-Nobel Art Prize in 1996. All he did was create the plastic pink flamingo! My kids should grow up to make that kind of contribution to mankind.

They held "The 15th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony" last week, and if you want to feel the full force of human intelligence and creativity, just take a gander at some of the winners.

Interestingly enough, it was Gauri Ganda, a big brain from MIT, who snagged the Ig in economics "for inventing an alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus ensuring that people DO get out of bed, and thus theoretically adding many productive hours to the workday."

Ganda's "Clocky" is not only a brilliant mechanical achievement, but an esthetic triumph as well — it's oblong-shaped and covered in fuzzy brown fur and has cute little wheels. The clock part peeks out of the fur, making it look like a cross between an Ewok and a cyclops. Stunning.

And speaking of Ewoks — the Ig-Nobel Peace Prize went to Claire Rind and Peter Simmons of Newcastle University in England "for electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie 'Star Wars.'"

I would have to do more research to see exactly how that promotes world peace, but I feel safer already.

Two chaps from the University of Queensland in Australia claimed the Ig-Nobel in physics "for patiently conducting an experiment that began in the year 1927 — in which a glob of congealed black tar has been slowly, slowly dripping through a funnel, at a rate of approximately one drop every nine years."

Think of the applications of this. Every time I go into the cellar to find a hammer or an old fishtank, I inevitably knock over a can of paint or glue or oil or something. Now all I have to do is calculate the viscosity of whatever I spilled relative to the congealed pitch and — presto! — I'll know exactly how many years I can wait to put the can upright before all the goo in it leaks on the floor. This is truly better living through science.

And I bow down (or should that be "bow-wow down"?) to Gregg A. Miller of Missouri, who won the Iggie in medicine for inventing Neuticles — "artificial replacement testicles for dogs, which are available in three sizes, and three degrees of firmness."

Still, for a wordsmith like me, the most important prize is the one for literature.

Last year's Nobel Prize for Literature went to Elfriede Jelinek "for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."

Right. Read a lot of Jelinek lately, have you? I'd rather read the back of the Cocoa-Puffs box.

But I feel pretty confident that many of you have read this year's winner for the Ig-Nobel Prize for Literature. In fact, I've read it hundreds of times!

The prize went to "the Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them."

A week doesn't go by without another installment of this glorious saga of human treachery and courage hitting my in-box. Anna Karenina? Holden Caulfield? Rhett and Scarlett? These are literary stick figures compared to Prince Johnson Moyo, Dr. Shamsudeen Pius Patrick, General Sani Abacha and the dozens of other towering figures who have made us laugh and cry since the series began in April 2000, with the knee-weakening appeal of Dr. Ben Oguejiofor to put $45 million in your checking account.

The proof that the Ig-Nobels are much more important than the Nobels is that past Nobel winners pay homage by handing out the Ig-Nobels.

This year, William Lipscomb, who won a mere Nobel for chemistry in 1976, did the honors. And just because he went dressed as a beer bottle doesn't mean he didn't take it seriously.

Rich Lewis' e-mail address is rlcolumn@comcast.net

Gregg Miller can supply *, Snotty Scotty, et al, when Fitz hacks them off.

I need that alarm clock for my daughter! Doesn't seem to be on the market yet.

And I am still scratching my head on the black goo experiment? Huh. Can we get grants for that type of "science"? A giant leap... and I want what they are smoking.:smoke: :evilgrin:

Thanks for posting this flowomo.

I went with my daughter, who attends Brandeis nearby.We had a ball! During the ceremony, the audience throws paper airplanes at the stage. A three-act opera was performed, its theme "Infinity". There was ONE small dig about how science is regarded by the current administration. Fun fun fun.

when I was researching for the column.... love the airplanes.... and the shot of the Nobel winner in a beer-bottle suit was amazing. BTW, I am from the Boston area and know Brandeis very well. Always liked that place.

on the Igs. I don't watch every day, but I saw that it's posted on his show's site.
Brandeis seems to be a great school. Daughter is taking Robert Reich's class "Wealth and Poverty"...if only I could sneak in somehow (Long Island a bit too far to come from).