Ig NOBELS

Food, water, live animals and nuclear devices were all banned from MIT's Kresge auditorium last Thursday night.

Instead, in a ceremony where more than 1200 audience members were actually encouraged to heckle, master of ceremonies Marc A. Abrahams '78 and an entourage of Harvard Nobel laureates presented the fourth annual Ig Nobel awards.

According to Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research, Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded to individuals whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced."

"I think there are a number of people who will spend the latter part of the evening looking back on their lives and thinking very hard about what brought them to this position," he said.

Abrahams started the annual Ig Nobel ceremony in 1991 with the support of Warren Seamans, director of the MIT museum. The prizes are a legacy from the estate of the legendary Ignatius ("Ig") Nobel, the inventor of excelsior (packing material) and co-inventor of soda pop.

"I think overall it was probably the weirdest single event I have ever seen in my life," said Ethan R. Mollick '97.

"There were so many respected dignified people acting so strangely in such a short period of time," Mollick said.

The ceremony included 30-second Heisenberg Certainty Lectures delivered by various academics, an interpretive dance of electrons starring Nobel laureates, an Element Fashion Show and a late-breaking research update that "One in 10 Ken dolls is gay."

"It is nice way of bringing science to the attention of the public," said Professor of Astronomy Margaret J. Geller.

Geller, who gave one of the Heisenberg lectures said, "It takes scientists off their pedestals, which is very important."

Special guests included designated heckler Ira Flatow, the host of National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation; James Knowlton, a returning Ig Nobel winner famous for his studies on penises of the animal kingdom; and a paramilitary force made up of Brownie Troop 1139.

Dudley R. Herschbach, Baird professor of science, and William N. Lipscomb, Lawrence professor of chemistry emeritus, were among the real Nobel laureates present.

Herschbach and Lipscomb were featured in a uniquely choreographed Dance of the Electrons along with 1993 Nobel laureate in medicine Richard J. Roberts and a group of scantily clad female dancers.

According to Robert B. Dimmick, who was in charge of the delegations at the ceremony, the presence of the real Nobel laureates is vital.

"The more (Nobel laureates) we get, the more legitimate this illegitimacy becomes," Dimmick said.

The ceremony started with a bang as members of the official heckler core threw airplanes into the audience and the MIT improve group, "Roadkill Buffet" got a chant and a wave going.

As a deep voice from above commanded everyone to "shut up, damn it," a near-naked man took his place on stage and a harpist began a "decomposed" version of "Pomp and Circumstance."

Members from the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association were among those in attendance, claiming to be the aliens who kidnapped John Mack, a no-show at the ceremony. Mack, who is a professor of psychiatry at the Medical School, is notorious for his study on the victims of alien abduction.

High lights of the award ceremony included the presentation of the biology prize for a breakthrough study on the bowel movement frequency of U.S. Servicemen.

The mathematics prize was awarded to the Southern Baptist Church of Alabama for its county by county estimate of how many Alabamian citizens will go to hell if they don't repent. And the physics prize was given to the Japanese Meterological Agency, for its seven-year study on whether earthquake are caused by catfish moving their tails.

Although the emphasis is on the humor of the "improbable and irreproducible" research, some of the work done is truly legitimate.

According the Geller, "There are things done under the name of science which are ridiculous. But there is also stuff done which sounds funny but is really serious."

The 1200 person Ig Nobel audience was made up of an eclectic group of students, scientists, authors and ordinary citizens who were up for something completely outrageous.

Pat Murray, an MIT employee in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, was at the Ig Nobels for the third year in a row. "It's nuts, because there's nothing else like it," she said.

Adam J. Szubin '95 wasn't planning on attending the ceremony but was rollerblading by the river and came upon MIT. He rollerbladed into MIT and borrowed shoes so that he could attend the event.

"I would definitely say that I expected it to be a geeky, stupid, whoopee cushion joke fest," said Szubin, who is a social studies concentrator. "But I thought it was well-planned and very funny."

But Szubin did denounce the Harvard bashing that went on throughout the ceremony. "For all they made fun of us, 3/4 of the Nobel prize winners were from Harvard," he said.

Michal J. Geller '95 loved watching the Nobel laureates in their electron dance. "It gave me such respect for them that I want to go visit them during their office hours," Geller said.

The point of all this craziness? If not to see dignified scientists make complete fools of themselves, it must be to reveal the true world of science and academics to an unsuspecting public, said John A. Barrett, official Ig Nobel referee and an administrative assistant in the physics department.