Ig Nobel Prize

The Ig Nobel Prizes (as in "ignoble") are a parody of the Nobel Prize and are given each year in early fall — a week or two before the recipients of the genuine Nobel Prizes are announced — for ten achievements that "cannot or should not be reproduced". Sponsored by the scientific humour journal Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), they are presented by genuine Nobel Laureates at a gala ceremony in Harvard University's Sanders Theatre. The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students.

The first IgNobels were awarded in 1991. With the exception of three prizes that year (see Administratium, Psychoceramics, and Paul DeFanti), all of them have been awarded for genuine achievements. The awards are sometimes veiled criticism — as in the two awards given for homeopathy research — but more often drawn attention to scientific articles that have some funny or non-serious aspect on them.

Examples of prize-winning research 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 to be the location of Hell.

The ceremony is followed a few days later by the Ig Informal Lectures at MIT, in which laureates have opportunity to explain their achievements and their relevance to the general public.

A book is available with writeups on some of the winners, ISBN 0-75285-150-0 (hardback), ISBN 0-75284-261-7 (paperback). As of 2004, a sequel is in the works.

Unlike the Darwin Awards, whose aim is to entertain, the aim of the Ig Nobel is also to arouse public interest in science. The ceremony is recorded and broadcast on National Public Radio, and for the last few years, the Ig Nobel Tour performed shows in Britain during