Ig Nobel Prizes combine science and humor

2005/10/23 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Sariak

The winners of the Fluid Dynamics award have been those who have calculated the internal pressure of penguins during feces.

Comtech

Although the investigations are ridiculous, the organizers take themselves very seriously and prepare an elegant and humorous act for the award ceremony. The event, held at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre, has been distributed by four authentic Nobel laureates. One of them was Robert Wilson, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering microwave background radiation.

Undoubtedly, for the winners of the Ig Nobel prizes it is an honor to receive the prize from such personalities, and no one has given up on receiving it, unlike what happens in the Novels. In fact, one of the winners of this year's Chemistry Novel, Frenchman Yves Chauvin, has stated that he will not move on to collect the Novel in December. It seems that until now he has lived very happy and calm, and since they have announced that they will give him the Nobel Prize, they do not leave him alone.

Some of the winners of Ig Nobel had the opposite: they wanted to go to collect the prize and could not. In fact, two researchers from Germany and Hungary, despite being awarded the Fluid Dynamics Award, did not get a visit to attend the event. It has been a shame, because the work they have done is really curious. Specifically, penguins have calculated the pressure that occurs inside them during the manufacture of feces.

Imagination and patience

The winner of the economic prize has invented an alarm clock that forces to take the lotía out of bed: the alarm clock moves and hides, and to turn it off, the newly awakened must look.

The rest of the research is not of any kind. For example, an American is awarded in Medicine for inventing artificial testicles for neutered dogs. In addition to Ig Nobel, the researcher can receive recognition from several dogs.

Sometimes it's as important to be patient as having good ideas, and that's what they wanted to recognize who they won in the Physics section. You have to be patient and follow an experiment started in 1927 to show that a tar ball releases a drop every nine years. The recipient of the Nutrition Award has shown that he has a lot of patience, as for 34 years he has been photographing and analyzing everything he eats. And keep on that.

Really curious curiosities

The winners of the Ig Nobel in Biology analyze the smell produced by frogs when they are stressed.

Likewise, the Chemistry Prize winners have been worth answering an old question: two students from the University of Minnesota have shown that in syrups you can swim as fast as in water. And the winner of the Economics Prize also has merit because he has invented an alarm clock capable of walking and hiding. So whoever wants to turn off the alarm clock is obliged to leave the bed.

The Peace Prize award-winning research has no excuse: an oti was shown the selected parts of the film Star Wars, while researchers have measured the activity of one of its neurons.

Finally, the award for the history of Agriculture has been presented to a New Zealander who has investigated “the meaning of the explosion of the losses of Mr. Richard Buckley”, Nigerian creators of Literature and Australians who have analyzed the smell produced by the 131 species of frog when stressed. It is clear that a curious researcher can be anywhere doing even more curious research. And that can also receive the prize.

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