The Ig Nobel Prize is awarded each year in October at Harvard University's Sanders Theatre. It is organized by Annals of Improbable Research to honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. Some notable winners include researchers who determined how a cow's likelihood of lying down relates to how long it has been standing, scientists who invented a fire alarm based on airborne wasabi, and a report about reports about reports that recommended preparing a report about itself.

1. Ig Nobel Prize
First LAUGH, Then THINK
Pranamesh Chakraborty
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

2. Organized by: Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
Held every year early October at Harvard University‟s
Sanders Theatre
First started in 1991
Prizes distributed by genuine Nobel laureates
Introduction

3. Video

4. Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners
2013: Probability Prize
Bert Tolkamp, Marie Haskell, Fritha Langford, David Roberts and Colin
Morgan
Two related discoveries :
 First, the longer a cow has been lying down, the more likely that cow
will soon stand up
 Second, once a cow stands up, you cannot easily predict how soon that
cow will lie down again.

5. Tolkamp, B. J.; Haskell, M. J.; Langford, F. M.; Roberts, D. J.; Morgan, C. A.
(2010). "Are cows more likely to lie down the longer they stand?". Applied Animal
Behaviour Science 124: 1. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2010.02.004

6. Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)
2011: Chemistry
Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima,
Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami
 Determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi (pungent horseradish)
 Invention of Wasabi Fire Alarm

8. Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)
2012: Literature
US Government General Accountability Office (GAO)
Report for the Department of Defense (DOD): “Defense Management:
Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Costs of
Reports and Studies.”
 “A report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation
of a report about the report about reports about reports”
Report × Infinity

9. Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)
“Make Love, Not War”
2007: Peace Prize
 Air Force Flight Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, USA
Thought of developing “Gay Bomb”
REFERENCE: "Harassing, Annoying, and 'Bad Guy' Identifying Chemicals," Wright Laboratory,
WL/FIVR, Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, June 1, 1994.

10. Notable Ig Nobel winners in Literature
1992
Yuri Struchkov from the Institute of Organoelemental
Compounds.
Published 948 scientific papers between 1981 and 1990.
Averaging more than ONE every FOUR days.

11. Notable Ig Nobel winners in Literature
1993
The GUSTO Investigators for their 10 page medical
research paper.
976 researchers from 16 countries were authors of this
paper.

12. Notable Ig Nobel winners in Literature
1999
British Standard Institution
For a 6 page specification (BS-6008)
About the proper way to make a “cup of Tea”

13. Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)
2005:
Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Invention of the “Clocky Alarm”
An alarm clock that runs away and hides, repeatedly, thus
ensuring that people DO get out of bed
and thereby awarded Ig Nobel in the field of
Economics
Clocky Alarm video

15. Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)
2003: Peace
Lal Bihari “Mritak” of Uttar Pradesh
Awarded for Triple accomplishment
1. Leading active life even though officially declared „DEAD‟
2. waging a lively posthumous campaign against bureaucratic
inertia and greedy relatives
3. Creating the “Mritak Sangh” or “Association of Dead
People”

16. Some notable Ig Nobel prize winners (Contd.)
2006: Peace
 Howard Stapleton
Awarded for invention of the
Mosquito Device
electromechanical Teenager Repellent device
The Mosquito Device Video

18. Few other Ig Nobel prize winners at a glance
2012: Acoustics: Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada for Speech
fdfdf Jammer.
2006 Mathematics: Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes for “Blink-
sfssfs Free Group Photo” calculation.
And many more………………..

19. References:
 Tolkamp, B. J.; Haskell, M. J.; Langford, F. M.; Roberts, D. J.; Morgan, C. A. (2010). "Are
cows more likely to lie down the longer they stand?". Applied Animal Behaviour
Science 124: 1. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2010.02.004
 US patent application 2010/0308995 A1; filing date: Feb 5, 2009. Product info [from
Seems, Inc.]. “Actions Needed to Evaluate the Impact of Efforts to Estimate Costs of
Reports and Studies," US Government General Accountability Office report GAO-12-
480R, May 10, 2012. - See more at:
http://www.improbable.com/ig/winners/#sthash.0ESQ02Yo.dpuf
 “Blink-Free Photos, Guaranteed” Velocity, June 2006
 http://www.improbable.com/ig/
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ig_Nobel_Prize