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From Extraordinary to Ordinary: Which Unexpected Research Results Have Won Ig Nobel Prizes?
Since 1991, the Ig Nobel Prize has been an annual satirical award celebrating ten unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. The award aims to "honor achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think." And the term is both a satire of the Nobel Prize and a connotation of "shameful". The Ig Nobel Prize is sponsored by the scientific humor magazine Annals of Nonsense Research. The winners receive the award at a ceremony at MIT and deliver a public lecture. Although the prize for this award is only a banknote with a face value of 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars (approximately US$0.40), it is even more valuable as a collectible.
"The Ig Nobel Prize recognizes unusual and hilarious research results."
History of Ig Nobel Prize
The Ig Nobel Prize was founded by Mark Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Nonsense Research and has served as host of the awards ceremony since its inception. The original award was for research findings that "should not be replicated." Ten prizes are awarded annually, covering the Nobel Prize elements of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, economics and peace, as well as other categories such as public health, engineering, biology and interdisciplinary research. While most of the laureates' research is factual, three prizes were awarded to fictional scientists in the inaugural 1991 edition.
"These awards are not only a mockery, but also important evidence to guide people's thinking."
The fun of the award ceremony
The Ig Nobel Prize award ceremony is usually presented by Nobel laureates. The ceremony was held in the Lecture Hall of MIT, moved to Harvard University's Sanders Theater in 1994, and was held online due to the COVID-19 epidemic from 2020 to 2023. There are many standing jokes during the ceremony, such as the little girl "Sweetheart" who will repeatedly yell "Please stop: I'm bored" to punish speakers who speak too long. The ceremony usually ends with "If you don't win, and especially if you win, try your luck next year!"
Global influence
In addition, a video of the ceremony will be broadcast on National Public Radio in the United States and live on the Internet. It will be broadcast every year on the Friday after Thanksgiving in the United States. On this occasion, the audience will chant the name of the show's host, Ira Fratto. Since 2003, the Ig Nobel tour has become part of the British National Science Week and has been held in Australia, Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands.
"The combination of humor and science is an important way to guide people to love science."
Unexpected achievements
The interesting thing about the Ig Nobel Prize is that even seemingly trivial research can often lead to important breakthroughs. For example, a 2006 study showed that a species of Plasmodium mosquito is equally attracted to German-made Limburger cheese as to human foot odor. The discovery marks a revolutionary development in the fight against malaria in Africa, allowing researchers to place cheese-baited mosquito traps in strategic locations.
The legacy and future of awards
Many commentators on the significance of these awards point out that although the Ig Nobel Prize celebrates trivial research, history has shown that such research sometimes leads to concrete progress. Andre Grim won the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for his research on making a frog levitate due to a magnetic field. Ten years later, he won the Nobel Prize for his research on graphene, becoming the only person to win both awards at the same time.
Behind these hilarious studies, can we better understand the joy and importance of scientific exploration?
