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Ig Nobel Prize First LAUGH, Then THINK Pranamesh Chakraborty Department of Civil Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Ig Nobel Prize

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Ig Nobel PrizeFirst LAUGH, Then THINK

Pranamesh Chakraborty

Department of Civil EngineeringIndian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Organized by: Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)

Held every year early October at Harvard University’s

Sanders Theatre

First started in 1991

Prizes distributed by genuine Nobel laureates

Introduction

Video

Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners

2013: Probability Prize

Bert Tolkamp, Marie Haskell, Fritha Langford, David Roberts and Colin

Morgan

Two related discoveries :

First, the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely that cow

will soon stand up

Second, once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon that

cow will lie down again.

Tolkamp, B. J.; Haskell, M. J.; Langford, F. M.; Roberts, D. J.; Morgan, C. A. (2010). "Are cows more likely to lie down the longer they stand?". Applied Animal Behaviour Science 124: 1. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2010.02.004

Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)

2011: Chemistry

Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima,

Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami

Determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish)

Invention of Wasabi Fire Alarm

Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)

2012: Literature

US Government General Accountability Office (GAO)

Report for the Department of Defense (DOD): “Defense Management:

Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Costs of

Reports and Studies.”

“A report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation

of a report about the report about reports about reports”

Report × Infinity

Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)

“Make Love, Not War”

2007: Peace Prize

Air Force Flight Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, USA

Thought of developing “Gay Bomb”

REFERENCE: "Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals," Wright Laboratory,

WL/FIVR, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, June 1, 1994.

Notable Ig Nobel winners in Literature

1992

Yuri Struchkov from the Institute of Organoelemental

Compounds.

Published 948 scientific papers between 1981 and 1990.

Averaging more than ONE every FOUR days.

Notable Ig Nobel winners in Literature

1993The GUSTO Investigators for their 10 page medical

research paper.

976 researchers from 16 countries were authors of this

paper.

Notable Ig Nobel winners in Literature

1999

British Standard Institution

For a 6 page specification (BS-6008)

About the proper way to make a “cup of Tea”

Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)

2005:

Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Invention of the “Clocky Alarm”

An alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus

ensuring that people DO get out of bed

and thereby awarded Ig Nobel in the field of

EconomicsClocky Alarm video

Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)

2003: PeaceLal Bihari “Mritak” of Uttar Pradesh

Awarded for Triple accomplishment

1. Leading active life even though officially declared ‘DEAD’

2. waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic

inertia and greedy relatives

3. Creating the “Mritak Sangh” or “Association of Dead

People” 

Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)

2006: Peace

Howard Stapleton

Awarded for invention of the

Mosquito Device

electromechanical Teenager Repellent device 

The Mosquito Device Video

Few other Ig Nobel prize winners at a glance

2012: Acoustics: Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada for Speech

fdfdf Jammer.

2006 Mathematics: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes for “Blink-

sfssfs Free Group Photo” calculation.

And many more………………..

References: Tolkamp, B. J.; Haskell, M. J.; Langford, F. M.; Roberts, D. J.; Morgan, C. A. (2010). "Are

cows more likely to lie down the longer they stand?". Applied Animal Behaviour

Science 124: 1. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2010.02.004

US patent application 2010/0308995 A1; filing date: Feb 5, 2009. Product info [from

Seems, Inc.]. “Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Costs of

Reports and Studies," US Government General Accountability Office report GAO-12-

480R, May 10, 2012. - See more at:

http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#sthash.0ESQ02Yo.dpuf

“Blink-Free Photos, Guaranteed” Velocity, June 2006

http://www.improbable.com/ig/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize