Top 10 Most Absurdly Ridiculous Ig Nobel Prize Winners
You may have heard of Nobel Prizes - awards that are given to people who made significant contributions to society. But did you know that the Nobel Prize has an opposite side? You got it right, The Ig Nobel Prize. While it may be not the exact opposite, these prizes are awarded for unusual works that "first make people laugh, and then make them think". This list shows some of the most ridiculous works from people that were awarded by the Ig Nobel Prize.This guy was pretty concerned about luxury cars that are parked illegally, so in 2011, he decided to demonstrate a highly intelligent explanation that those pesky luxury cars can be run over by tanks to eliminate that problem. Thanks for the life hack, Arturas.
I think the point of the prize is for ridiculousness, and this definitely achieves that.
Responsible for the study of Murphy's Law. If you're wondering why toast tends to fall down on its butter side, there's a scientific work that specifically explains the belief of the buttered toast phenomenon. Robert Matthews was one of the first people to put his emphasis into such a niche.
Normally you would ignore some of the things you dislike or find as pet peeves, but this guy would take it in the polar opposite, writing research papers of the things he finds annoying with intricate detail. John Trinkaus is known for publishing almost a hundred academic papers on things he dislikes. Research papers include:
- "How many people pay for the candles in churches"
- "What percentage of pedestrians wear sport shoes that are white rather some other color"
- "How many people wear baseball caps with the bill facing backwards"
- "How often do drivers come to a complete stop at stop signs"
For trying to demonstrate an extremely specific question on why discus throwers become dizzy, and why hammer throwers don't. You may conclude that nobody would care about this topic, but look at the bright side! At least there's that one guy who wonders about this question for years. Other winners that participated on this research include Dominique Deviterne, Bruno Ragaru, Cyril Perrot, and Herman Kingma.
In 2007, The United States Air Force Wright Laboratory received the Ig Nobel Prize for proposing an idea of a "gay bomb" creation (composed of pheromones) which will make their opponents become sexually attracted to the same gender. However, there has no proven studies regarding pheromones that change human behavior, so the actual bomb was not created. Well at least now I know that in World War IV, wars will be fought with balls and boners.
Responsible for the creation of an "electromechanical teenager repellant", or in short "The Mosquito" in 2005. The device produces a sound that is only audible to teenagers and young adults. Originally it was used for reducing loitering and vandalism, but it was criticized for violating the human rights of young people. Otherwise, this seems like an ideal device for boomers to get rid of those pesky whippersnappers. Howard Stapleton received the Ig Nobel prize award just a year after his invention.
Some people take very simple questions with pretty complex answers, and that question is "why do people sigh". Apparently there's a multi paragraphed article written by Teigen in early 2008 that answers that question, but you're better off reading those sighs with intuition. This lead him win the Ig Nobel Prize award in 2011
Awarded for stating that plants and other organisms have dignity. Way to go on solving the root problem of plant abuse! Might as well ban soaps and other detergents because it kills organisms and bacteria cause they deserve to be respected.
Be grateful that at least your overly religious parents don't make mathematical calculations to determine if you're going to hell or not, but this church takes it to the next level. Inspecting county by county, the church concluded that 46% of Albamians will go to hell if they don't repent to Christ.
Responsible for conducting a research on whats the best way to dunk a biscuit in tea. Welp, at least we found the most british research paper in this list.
In my opinion not at all is the best option. Biscuits are better by themselves.
Won an Ig Nobel prize for levitating a frog with magnets. Interesting unlike most Ig Nobel prize winners, he won a Nobel prize for his major works on graphene.