A new crop of Ig Nobel Prizewinners was honored October 9, 1997, at the Seventh First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, held before a paper-airplane-throwing sellout crowd of 1200 in Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre, Cambridge MA. The event was produced by the science humor magazine, Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), and co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard Computer Society and by the new book The Best of Annals of Improbable Research.
The Prizes were physically handed to the winners by several genuine Nobel Laureates, including Dudley Herschbach, William Lipscomb, Richard Roberts, and Robert Wilson. A worldwide audience watched via a live Internet telecast. (The event was also recorded, and was scheduled to be broadcast on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation/Science Friday program on the day after American Thanksgiving.)
The Nobel Laureates were active throughout the evening, in many ways. Lipscomb was given away in a Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-Laureate Contest. Plaster casts of the left feet of Lipscomb and Herschbach, and also that of fellow Nobel Laureate Walter Gilbert, were auctioned off for the benefit of the Cambridge public schools science programs. All the laureates joined soprano Margot Button and Baritone Benjamin Sears in the world premiere of a new mini-opera (Il Kaboom Grosso) about the big bang.
Here is a list of the 1997 winners:
BIOLOGY: T. Yagyu and his colleagues from the University Hospital of Zurich, Switzerland, from Kansai Medical University in Osaka, Japan, and from Neuroscience Technology Research in Prague, Czech Republic, for measuring people’s brainwave patterns while they chewed different flavors of gum. [Published as “Chewing gum flavor affects measures of global complexity of multichannel EEG,” T. Yagyu, et al., Neuropsychobiology, vol. 35, 1997, pp. 46-50.] [CONTACT: Dr. Thomas Koenig, The KEY Institute for Brain-Mind Research, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Zurich, POB 8029 Zurich, Switzerland, +41-1-384-2392]
ENTOMOLOGY: Mark Hostetler of the University of Florida, for his scholarly book, That Gunk on Your Car, which identifies the insect splats that appear on automobile window. [The book is published by Ten Speed Press.] [CONTACT: Mark Hostetler, Department of Zoology 223 Bartram Hall, P.O. Box 118525 Gainesville, FL 32611, 352-392-1040 <HOS@ZOO.UFL.EDU> [Mark Hostetler came to the ceremony to accept the prize. He also delivered a talk the following day at the Ig Informal Lectures.]
ASTRONOMY: Richard Hoagland of New Jersey, for identifying artificial features on the moon and on Mars, including a human face on Mars and ten-mile high buildings on the far side of the moon. [For details, see The Monuments of Mars : A City on the Edge of Forever, by Richard C. Hoagland,North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA,1996.] [CONTACT INFO: North Atlantic Books, 1456 4th St Berkeley, CA 94710, 510-559-8277 www.atlanticbooks.com ]
COMMUNICATIONS: Sanford Wallace, president of Cyber Promotions of Philadelphia—neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night have stayed this self-appointed courier from delivering electronic junk mail to all the world.
PHYSICS: John Bockris of Texas A&M University, for his wide-ranging achievements in cold fusion, in the transmutation of base elements into gold, and in the electrochemical incineration of domestic rubbish.
LITERATURE: Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg of Israel, and Michael Drosnin of the United States, for their hairsplitting statistical discovery that the Bible contains a secret, hidden code. [Witztum, Rips and Rosenberg’s original research was published as Equidistant Letter Sequences in the Book of Genesis, Statistical Science, Vol. 9, No. 3, 1994, pp. 429-38. Drosnin’s popular book, The Bible Code, was published by Simon & Schuster.]
MEDICINE: Carl J. Charnetski and Francis X. Brennan, Jr. of Wilkes University, and James F. Harrison of Muzak Ltd. in Seattle, Washington, for their discovery that listening to elevator Muzak stimulates immunoblobulin A (IgA) production, and thus may help prevent the common cold. [CONTACT: Prof. Carl Charnetsky, Psychology Dept., Wilkes University, Wilkes PA 18766, 717-831-4564]
ECONOMICS: Akihiro Yokoi of Wiz Company in Chiba, Japan and Aki Maita of Bandai Company in Tokyo, the father and mother of Tamagotchi, for diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets. [CONTACT: Mary Woodworth, Bandai America, El Segundo, CA 310-640- 8674, FAX 310-322-4880. Alternate contact: Kimie Takahashi, Bandai America, 5551 Katella Eve., Cypress CA 90630, 714-816-6711]
PEACE: Harold Hillman of the University of Surrey, England for his lovingly rendered and ultimately peaceful report “The Possible Pain Experienced During Execution by Different Methods.” [Published in “Perception 1993,” vol 22, pp. 745-53.]
METEOROLOGY: Bernard Vonnegut of the State University of Albany, for his revealing report, “Chicken Plucking as Measure of Tornado Wind Speed.” [Published in “Weatherwise,” October 1975, p. 217.] [CONTACT: Peter Vonnegut (Bernard’s son), 19 Oakwood Ave., East Greenbush, NY, 518-477-7210 <dewcir@cnsvax.albany.edu>] [Bernard Vonnegut passed away in the spring of 1997. His son, Peter, came to the ceremony to accept the prize. A note of interest: Bernard was the older brother of novelist Kurt Vonnegut.]