# The Ig Nobel Awards



## dwndrgn (Mar 1, 2004)

http://improb.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2003

Here is a list of the 2003 Ig Nobel awards for achievement in science.  From the official site: "The Igs are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology."  I thought knivesout would be particularly interested in this one:

"PEACE
Lal Bihari, of Uttar Pradesh, India, for a triple accomplishment: First, for leading an active life even though he has been declared legally dead; Second, for waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic inertia and greedy relatives; and Third, for creating the Association of Dead People.
WHO ATTENDED THE IG NOBEL CEREMONY: Lal Bihari overcame the handicap of being dead, and managed to obtain a passport from the Indian government so that he could travel to Harvard to accept his Prize. However, the U.S. government refused to allow him into the country. His friend Madhu Kapoor therefore came to the Ig Nobel Ceremony and accepted the Prize on behalf of Lal Bihari. Several weeks later, the Prize was presented to Lal Bihari himself in a special ceremony in India. [NOTE: Filmmaker Satish Kaushik will be making a film about the life (and death and life) of Lal Bihari.]"


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## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Mar 2, 2004)

Yeow - the whole thing sounds totally preposterous and utterly plausible! Typical of our leaden bureacracy, too.  


Thanks for the link. The award seems like a an interesting idea, too...


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## Jayaprakash Satyamurthy (Mar 2, 2004)

Truth seems to be stranger than fiction:


MATHEMATICS
K.P. Sreekumar and the late G. Nirmalan of Kerala Agricultural University, India, for their analytical report "Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants." [REFERENCE: "Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants (Elephas maximus indicus)," K.P. Sreekumar and G. Nirmalan, Veterinary Research Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, 1990, pp. 5-17.]

This one seems very interesting, wonder if they've made one for cats yet:


PEACE
Keita Sato, President of Takara Co., Dr. Matsumi Suzuki, President of Japan Acoustic Lab, and Dr. Norio Kogure, Executive Director, Kogure Veterinary Hospital, for promoting peace and harmony between the species by inventing Bow-Lingual, a computer-based automatic dog-to-human language translation device.


This should be of particular interest to library lurkers  :

LITERATURE
Vicki L. Silvers of the University of Nevada-Reno and David S. Kreiner of Central Missouri State University, for their colorful report "The Effects of Pre-Existing Inappropriate Highlighting on Reading Comprehension." [ PUBLISHED IN: Reading Research and Instruction, vol. 36, no. 3, 1997, pp. 217-23.]

This one is rather scathing, but true, although I dont see why more recent awards havent been given to other 'peace-promoting' leaders like George W: 

PEACE 
Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India and Prime 
Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, for their aggressively peaceful 
explosions of atomic bombs

ANd let us not forget:

LITERATURE 
Erich Von Daniken, visionary raconteur and author of "Chariots of 
the Gods," for explaining how human civilization was influenced by 
ancient astronauts from outer space.


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