Ig Nobel Prize: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Ig Nobel Prizes (as in "ignoble") are awarded annually to those who have made strange scientific achievements that make one laugh, and then think. Ten prizes are given to people who have done remarkably goofy things -- some of them admirable, some perhaps otherwise. The first IgNobels were awarded in 1991. Three of the 1991 prizes were awarded for fictitious discoveries (see Administratium, Psychoceramics, and Buckybonnet); all the achievements awarded in the following years are genuine.

The prizes are presented at a gala ceremony in Harvard University's Sanders Theatre, and are sponsored by the scientific humour journal Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). Explains the journal's editor Marc Abrahams, "Most scientists don't get much attention for their work. For the winners it's an opportunity for people to pay attention to them and ask them what they do." Officially the prizes are granted for 'performances that cannot or should not be repeated'. The former are usually some kind of criticism to the 'winners', the latter are usually scientific articles that have some funny or non-serious aspect on them.

The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students. Though they are a parody of the Nobel Prizes, genuine Nobel Laureates are on hand to award the winners with their honours.

Examples of the research include the discovery that the presence of humans tends to sexually arouse ostriches and the application of imaginary numbers to accounting practices.

A book is available with writeups on some of the winners, ISBN 0752851500 (hardback), ISBN 0752842617 (paperback).

The prizes are similar in terms of dignity and scope to the Darwin Awards.