- THE CEREMONY (September 20)
- The winners
- Live Webcast
- Webcast Watching Parties
- Download the Spiffy Poster and IgBill (booklet)
- Supporters
- Ceremony Details (including the Opera)
- Who’s Who
- If you are coming to Sanders Theatre…
- IG INFORMAL LECTURES (September 14)
- Previous years
- Info for the press
The 2012 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony
Thursday, September 20 at 7:30 pm*
Sanders Theater, Harvard University
*Pre-ceremony concert —and the webcast —begin at 7:10 pm (US Eastern Time)
The ceremony proper begins at 7:30 pm
The 22nd First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony introduced ten new Ig Nobel Prize winners. Each has done something that makes people laugh then think. The winners traveled to the ceremony, at their own expense, from several continents. The Prizes were handed to them by a group of genuine, genuinely bemused Nobel Laureates, in Harvard’s historic, largest theater filled with 1100 improbable persons, everything webcast live. The ceremony included many other delights —see details below. (And For the latest Ig Nobel news, see the blog.)
Live Webcast
The ceremony was webcast live, here’s the full recording:
Webcast Watching Parties
In addition to the many individual Ig Nobel webcast watching parties that happen around the world, there are a few larger, official ones. If you would like to organize such a party we would like to hear about it and help you publicize it.
This year, there were broadcast watching parties in Paris, in Atlanta, and a grand, middle-of-the-night event at a theater in Leiden, The Netherlands (logo at right).
Downloadable Poster & Program
Download your very own PDF copies of the 2012 Ceremony’s Spiffy Poster and IgBill (program), identical to the ones we print for the ceremony. The poster in particular is a great way to increase Ig Nobel and universal awareness among friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, and complete strangers.
Supporters
FIGS (Friends of the Ig) — Generous supporters of the 2012 Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, who are helping the world laugh then think:
Ceremony Details
The theme of this year’s ceremony (though not necessarily of the individual prizes) is: THE UNIVERSE.
In addition to the awarding of the 2012 Ig Nobel Prizes, the ceremony will include a variety of momentously inconsequential events. Among them:
- Several Nobel laureates will physically hand the Ig Nobel Prizes to the new winners:
- Dudley Herschbach (chemistry, 1986)
- Rich Roberts (physiology or medicine, 1993)
- Eric Maskin (economics, 2007)
- Roy Glauber (physics, 2005)
- and perhaps others to be announced
- Pre-Pre-ceremony concert (at 6:45 pm, in the lobby) by the Boston Squeezebox Ensemble
- Pre-ceremony mini-concert (at 7:10 pm, in the theater) by “KEROMIN”, the Amazing FROGS, making their American debut
- Two grand Paper Airplane Deluges, one at ceremony’s beginning, the other at the midpoint
- Keynote Address by Robert Kirshner
- The 24/7 Lectures, in which several of the world’s top thinkers will each explain her or his subject twice:
FIRST: a complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS*
AND THEN: a clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS- Roy Glauber (Nobel laureate in physics, 2005): The Universe
- Erika Ebbel Angle (Science from Scientists founder, Miss Massachusetts 2004): Mass Spectrometry
- Rich Roberts (Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, 1993): Arsenic-based Life
- Dr. Elena Bodnar (Ig Nobel Prize winner in public health, 2009): Electro-muscular Incapacitation
- World premiere of a brand new mini-opera: “The Intelligent Designer and The Universe” starring Maria Ferrante, Ben Sears, Roberta Gilbert, and Daniel Rosenberg, with pianist Patrick Yacono and accordionist Thomas Michel, MD, PhD. Conducted & stage directed by David Stockton.
- Returning Ig Nobel Prize winners:
- Dr. Elena Bodnar (invention of an emergency bra that can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks)
- Mahadevan (mathematico-physics analysis of how sheets get wrinkled)
- Dr. Richard Gustafson (failure of self-administered automobile-engine-supplied-electric-shock treatment for rattlesnake envenomation resulting from patient’s pet rattlesnake biting the patient on the lip)
- Dr. Francis Fesmire (digital rectal massage as a cure for intractable hiccups)
- Dr. Deborah Anderson (the effect of Coca-Cola on sperm motility)
- Don Featherstone (creator of the plastic pink flamingo)
- Dan Meyer (the medical effects of swordswallowing)
- and perhaps others
- Ceremonial band music by Nicholas Carstoiu and The Ig Leaves
- Salutes to the Audience Delegations
- The Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest
- Karen Hopkin, creator of the Studmuffins of Science Calendar
- Gala Introduction of the Audience Delegations
- All speeches will be brief, and thus especially delightful, with assistance from 8-year-old Miss Sweetie Poo.
- The Minordomos will make most things run smoothly on stage.
- The V-Chip Monitor, Prominent New York Attorney William J. Maloney, will guard against offensive words, sounds, thoughts, or imaginings.
- The Traditional “Welcome, Welcome” Speech
- The Traditional “Goodbye, Goodbye” Speech
- Other wondrous things
* Time limits to be enforced by Mr. John Barrett, the Ig Nobel Referee
Who’s Who:
Some of the ceremony organizers and participants:
If You Are Coming to Sanders Theatre…
WHERE: If you are walking, driving, T-ing, biking, or running to Sanders Theatre, you may want some directions. Here are: (1) a map and directions; and (2) the secret of how to pahk your cah near Hahvud Yahd.
WHAT TO WEAR: We suggest you wear clothing. Clothing that is, like you, colorful. People like yourself (or in some cases, very unlike yourself) in distant places, watching the broadcast and seeing occasional glimpses of the Sanders Theatre audience, will thrill to the panoply of colors, styles, and improbable accoutrements. This is the night to unearth your old wedding gown, uniform, suit of armor, labcoat or longjohns.
WHAT TO BRING: Paper, paper, paper. Paper to make into paper airplanes. Additional paper to give to those around you who may have forgotten to bring their own paper, and who as a consequence of their own neglect are forlornly wishing they could join in the thrill and intellectual romance of making and throwing paper airplanes. SAFETY FIRST, please! Paper airplanes should only be thrown at the safety-equipment-laden individual onstage who is the Designated Paper Airplane Target. Paper airplanes may only be made of paper.
NOTE: There will be two (2) designated Paper Airplane Deluge periods, one at the very start of the ceremony, the other at the ceremony’s midpoint.
The Ig Informal Lectures
Saturday, Sep 22, 2012, 1:00 pm.
MIT, Building 26, Room 100
A half-afternoon of improbably funny, informative, informal, brief public lectures and demonstrations:
- The new Ig Nobel Prize winners will attempt to explain what they did, and why they did it
- Select past winners will tell us about some of their new adventures
- Special musical performance by “KEROMIN”, the Amazing FROGS
- Everyone will be available for you to talk with, both before and after the lectures
Special Thanks To…
All Ig Nobel Prize activities are organized by the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association (HRSFA), and the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Students (SPS).