2005 IgNobel Prize Awards

karvind writes "This week Nobel prizes in Chemistry, Physics and Medicine were announced. Keeping up with the tradition, the 15th Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony was held at Sander's Theater at Harvard University. Winners include: Will Humans Swim Faster or Slower in Syrup? (Chemistry), Electrically monitoring the activity of a brain cell in a locust while that locust was watching selected highlights from the movie "Star Wars" (Peace), The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers (Agricultural History) and many more. Interestingly Roy Glauber, who for ten years has humbly swept paper airplanes on the stage at the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics. Archived video of the live webcast is also available for those who couldn't attend the ceremony."

Comments

Re:Don't Forget Literature!

[DrEldarion]

Honestly, the creativity that scammers show is pretty amazing to see. Some of the stories/methods that they dream up in order to manipulate people into their scams are actually pretty amazing.

If they weren't such bastards, I'd admire them ;)

SPOILERS

[cgenman]

They balance out. You swim at the same speed... at least according to the winner.

Re:SImple viscosity?

[truckaxle]

Since alcohol has a lower viscosity than water I wonder how fast a human swimmer could swim in vat of alcohol. Any takers? Now that I got thinking about this if you had an ideal fluid with no viscosity could you swim at all?

Actually this research should team up with the Australian and see how fast a swimmer could swim in a tub of congealed black tar

The Most Important Part of the Ceremony

[Jazzer_Techie]

I had the privilage of attending the awards last night for the first time. It was a ton of fun. My friends and I threw about a half ream of paper airplanes from the balcony and of course got some good laughs from the prizes that others have mentioned. But by far the most disturbing event of the night was the 2003 Biology Prize winner again showing his (first ever) documentation of of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. http://www.nmr.nl/deins815.htm

If any one is in the Cambridge/Boston area this Saturday there is a free lecture at MIT during which the laureates will describe more about their research.

Note: This may well be the only time that "homosexual necrophilia" has been used in a non-troll /. post.

"Timecube" not even nominated?

[Hao Wu]

Surely "TIME CUBE" deserves Ig-recognition....

"Recognition and application of this Cubic
simultaneous 4 day rotation of Earth,
will change all math, science and societies
from the begining of human existence.
You have to be evil to ignore this math."

Re:Don't Forget Literature!

[MikeCapone]

I really liked the "swimming through sugar syrup vs water" experiment. I'd have been a volunteer swimmer for that one. The penguin poo velocity one was neat too. I didn't know about the phenomenon before reading about it there, so the awards are educational. I wonder if it's in that March of the Penguins movie...

I actually posted about it on TH earlier this morning:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/10/sciences_b est_f.php

Re:SImple viscosity?

[mrchaotica]

Now that I got thinking about this if you had an ideal fluid with no viscosity could you swim at all?

Think about this: can astronauts swim through the air in their spacecraft?