Friday, September 30, 2011

Ig Nobel Prize 2011

Ig Nobel prize is the lighter side of life and sciences. A little digress from freaque waves. I have been following them from time to time. It is something as the organizer puts it : For achievements that first make people LAUGH, then make them THINK. The 2011 prizes were announced and awarded last night (September 29, 2011) as reported here. Check it out, read them and enjoy! Here are my personal favorites and their prize winning work:

Physics prize for determining why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't. ("Dizziness in Discus Throwers is Related to Motion Sickness Generated While Spinning," Philippe Perrin, Cyril Perrot, Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru and Herman Kingma, Acta Oto-laryngologica, vol. 120, no. 3, March 2000, pp. 390–5.)

Peace prize for demomstrating how to solve illegally parked luxury cars in the city of Vilnius, LITHUANIA -- by running them over with an armored tank. (VIDEO and OFFICIAL CITY INFO)

Literature prize for the Theory of Structured Procrastination. ( "How to Procrastinate and Still Get Things Done," John Perry, Chronicle of Higher Education, February 23, 1996. Later republished elsewhere under the title "Structured Procrastination." )

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