Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 102

4 Days Until…

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

In 1995 some lucky audience member at the 5th First Annual Ig Nobel Ceremony won the date of their dreams. For in their program, they found an image of Albert Einstein combing his hair which signified that they had won the “Win A Date With A Nobel Laureate Contest” whose lucky bachelor that night was Chemistry Nobel Prize Winner Dudley R. Herschbach.

This is a glimpse from a past ceremony, tune in to see what this year will bring.

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com

“A Female Anchors a Male”– an Ig Nobel Prize favorite moment

This historic Ig Nobel Favorite Moment video stars Tomonori Yamamoto, who has helped organize Ig Nobel events at Miraikan in Tokyo.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

And now for the same thing in Japanese:

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com.

Coordinator, Narrator, & Typist: Seth Gliksman

5 Days Until…

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

The 2006 winners of the Ig Nobel Prize in Acoustics went to D. Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand for conducting experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails scraping on a blackboard. This is a demonstration of that dislike by a dais of Nobel laureates.

This is a glimpse from a past ceremony, tune in to see what this year will bring.

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com

“‘Sure,’ We Said, ‘But Outside.”– an Ig Nobel Prize favorite moment

This historic Ig Nobel Favorite Moment video stars Jackie Baum and Stanley Eigen, who hosted many Ig Nobel afterparties.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com.

Coordinator, Narrator, & Typist: Seth Gliksman

“Then Mandelbrot Congratulated Me”– an Ig Nobel Prize favorite moment

This historic Ig Nobel Favorite Moment video stars Javier Morales Castillo, who was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for making diamonds from tequila.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

And once more, this time in Spanish:

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com.

Coordinator, Narrator, & Typist: Seth Gliksman

A Big Spring in One’s Step Makes One Faster

An almost-Nakamatsian invention would let human runners run much faster, explains a new study:

“How to run 50% faster without external energy,” Amanda Sutrisno and David J. Braun, Science Advances, vol. 6, no. 13, March 25, 2020, eaay1950. The authors, at Vanderbilt University, report:

“Humans have attempted to surpass their natural running capability using springs for at least a century… We conceive an unconventional means of running, which could allow the human to maximize top running speed by supplying energy in the air instead of on the ground. This may be achieved by augmenting the human with variable stiffness springs attached to the limbs. In the air, the limbs supply energy by simultaneously compressing and increasing the stiffness of the springs.”

The Spring Shoes of Dr. Nakamats

Dr. Nakamats, the world’s most prolific inventor (more than 3300 patents, and counting), who also has an Ig Nobel Prize (for having photographed every meal he’s consumed during much of his life), famously invented a spring-driven shoe, many years ago. Here’s video of a young man taking a Nakamats-enhanced stroll:

6 Days Until…

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

In 2009 Dr. Elena Bodnar was awarded the Ig Nobel Public Health prize for her patented bra design which converts quickly into two emergency face masks. Here, she demonstrates that design on some fellow Ig Nobel winners of years gone by.

This is a glimpse from a past ceremony, tune in to see what this year will bring.

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com

7 Days Until…

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK.

In 2018, at the 28th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, John Barry, Bruce Blank, and Michel Boileau were awarded an Ig Nobel in Reproductive Medicine for their study titled “Nocturnal Penile Tumescence Monitoring with Stamps”.

This is a glimpse from a past ceremony, tune in to see what this year will bring.

The 30th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony will be webcast September 17, 2020 at www.improbable.com

Countdown to the Ig: “The weirdest Advent calendar ever created”

“Fantastic! It’s like the weirdest Advent calendar ever created”—that’s how Stephanie Clayman describes the day-by-day countdown-to-the-Ig-Nobel-Prize-Ceremony tiny videos. You can watch all of them here, in order, starting at day 15, then 14, then 13,…

Seth Gliksman made these videos, harvesting historic footage from Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies of the past.

World Standards Day: USA almost only slightly out of whack

Most years, World Standards Day occurs in the USA on a different day than it does in other countries. This year, 2020, that tradition continues.

Rather than celebrate 2020’s World Standards Day on the same day (October 14) as other countries, the USA will celebrate World Standards day on five (5) different days, none of which quite overlaps with the world’s World Standards Day.

American World Standards Weeks is not that far off from the World Standards standard. Some of America’s days are less than a week distant from the world’s World Standards Day.

And be it noted that America’s World Standards Week establishes the principle that a week is five (5) days long.

Here is the official American announcement:

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has announced dates for World Standards Week 2020, which will be held October 19–23