History
The first Ig Nobels were created in 1991 by Marc Abrahams, editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, and the Master of Ceremonies at all subsequent awards ceremonies. Awards were presented at that time for discoveries "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced". Ten prizes are awarded each year in many categories, including the Nobel Prize categories of physics, chemistry, physiology/medicine, literature, and peace, but also other categories such as public health, engineering, biology, and interdisciplinary research. With the exception of three prizes in the first year (Administratium, Josiah Carberry, and Paul DeFanti), the Ig Nobel Prizes are for genuine achievements.
The awards are sometimes veiled criticism (or gentle satire), as in the two awards given for homeopathy research, prizes in "science education" to the Kansas and Colorado state boards of education for their stance regarding the teaching of evolution, and the prize awarded to Social Text after the Sokal Affair. Most often, however, they draw attention to scientific articles that have some humorous or unexpected aspect. Examples range from the discovery that the presence of humans tends to sexually arouse ostriches, to the statement that black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell, to research on the "five-second rule", a tongue-in-cheek belief that food dropped on the floor will not become contaminated if it is picked up within five seconds.
In 2010, Andre Geim became the first person to receive both the Nobel and an individual Ig Nobel prize.
Read more about this topic: Ig Nobel Prize
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)