Monday, October 1, 2012

Ig Nobel Prizes is an Annual Joy

A week or so ago, one of the annual joys of the season came with   announcement of the Ig Nobel Prizes.

Here are some of the highlights:
A winner holding an Ig Nobel prize

The psychology prize went to scientists who figured out why leaning to the left makes the Eiffel Tower look smaller. It's magic! The only question is, are you supposed to lean left physically or politically to have this effect on the Eiffel Tower?  

The Acoustics prize went to a gadget that disrupts people's  speech by making them hear their own words at a slight delay. The effect makes them shut up, it seems. Ohh, this gadget would sell like hot cakes, let me tell you. Well, I can't tell you, because I think my speech is being disrupted by the device.

The Chemistry Prize was for  figuring out why people's hair turned green in some houses in the town of Anderslov, Sweden. It turns out copper accumulates in the water inside the pipes overnight because they aren't coated adequately. Then again, I see a lot of people who intentionally dye their hair green, so this could be the start of a fashion trend.

I can see the youngsters all headed to Anderslov to get green hair. This could be the next Burning Man.

The prizes had a literature award winner for the U.S. General Accounting Office which wrote, as the Ig Nobel officials said, the US Government General Accountability Office, for issuing a report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports.

Is it now necessary for me to report that the Ig Nobel report on the report is reportedly confusing?

Here's a project for readers? Who would you nominate for an Ig Nobel prize and for what reason should they receive it?

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