Ig Nobels: The Book

Too Much Free Time

from the phew dept

Well, here’s one to go next to my copy of Our Dumb Century on the coffee table. Just as we get ready for the latest Ig Nobel awards (for research that “cannot or should not be reproduced”), it appears that Marc Abrahams is coming out with a book about the awards called (very originally) The Ig Nobel Prizes that details the history of the awards and their winners. In the article above, Abrahams admits that the common feature in all of the research/actions that have won the award is that, “the only reaction that is at all reasonable is that it makes you laugh and you think about it afterwards.” The article discusses a few of the previous awards, including the incredibly important research done by some doctors on “the collapse of toilets in Glasgow” which suggest avoiding older porcelain toilets – or at least using the “hover method” to avoid the danger.