The Ig® Nobel Prizes

The 2008 ceremony will happen on Thursday night, October 2, 2008.

The 2007 ceremony happened on Thursday night, October 4, 2007, with most of the winners taking part. Watch video of the ceremony online.

The Russian network NTV traveled the world to interview Ig Nobel Prize winners. Their ten-minute report, originally broadcast in December 2007, is now online. Click here to watch it. (The video is slow to load over the Internet, but is enlightening.) The image here shows the NTV reporter visiting the (Literature Prize-winning) Nudist Research Library in Kissimmee, Florida.

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative -- and spur people's interest in science, medicine, and technology.

"Last, but not least, there are the Ig Nobel awards. These come with little cash, but much cachet, and reward those research projects that 'first make people laugh, and then make them think'" -- Nature

  • Past winners (the complete list)
  • Recent news (from the Ig blog)
  • Previous ceremonies (details, video, opera librettos)
  • Video of the 2006 ceremony.
  • Some thoughts about the Igs, what they are, what they aren't, and what it could all mean.

    • In a gala ceremony in Harvard's Sanders Theatre, 1200 splendidly eccentric spectators watch the winners step forward to accept their Prizes. These are physically handed out by genuinely bemused genuine Nobel Laureates.
    The ceremony is webcast live.

    The Ig Nobel Prizes are organized by the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. The ceremony is co-sponsored by the Harvard-Radcliffe Society of Physics Student, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association, and the Harvard Computer Society.

    How to Get Involved

  • Nominate a candidate for an Ig Nobel Prize
  • Volunteer to help at the events
  • Have your organization become a sponsor
  • Have your school carry the live student cable channels broadcast

    • 2004 Ig Nobel Peace Prize winner Daisuke Inoue -- the inventor of karaoke -- is serenaded by Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach (left), Richard Roberts and William Lipscomb, and by Studmuffins of Science creator Dr. Karen Hopkin. (Click on image to enlarge it)

    Other Events During the Year

    The Ig Nobel organizers and winners also present other events that (we hope) make people laugh and then think (For a complete list, see the schedule). Here are a few of them:

    What Is the Experience Like?

    Personal reminiscences of some of the participants: Glenda Browne, Snively, Peter Barss, Francis Fesmire,Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow, Ramesh Balasubramaniam, Yukio Hirose, Kees Moeliker (a large PDF file), Kees Moeliker (again), Mark Benecke, Theodore Gray [with video], Annalee Newitz, Max Sherman, Michael Berry, Buck Weimer, Ig Nobel newlyweds Lisa and Will, the Boston Mensa delegation, Ida Sabelis, Arnd Leike [with video], Lawrence Nyveen, Arvid Vatle, Karl Kruszelnicki, Gordon McNaughton

    Viliumas Malinauskus, founder of Stalin World, accepting the 2001 Ig Nobel Peace Prize. Photo: Caroline Coffman. (Click on image to enlarge it)

    Press accounts: Las Vegas Sun, Wall Street Journal, Upstreet, CBS News Sunday Morning [with video], MSN [in two parts: 1 and 2], Associated Press, NTV [Russia, with video], Popular Science, El Spectador, The Age, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,Quest, New Scientist, Muy Interesante Junior, Nashua Telegraph, Montreal Gazette, Discovery Channel's Daily Planet [video report], The Sun, Noordelicht, Etiqueta Negra, National Business Review, The Sentinel, Agence France Presse, Wired News, Nature, BBC, Gulf News, Cambridge Chronicle, Shanghai Daily, Montreal Gazette, Blogcritics, CNN [with video], The Diamondback, Asahi Shimbun, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Financial Times, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner, The Washington Post, The Guardian, China Central Television [20-minute video report], Russkii Newsweek(1,2,3,4), Asia-Pacific Perspectives, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Guardian, The Daily Yomiuri, Asahi Shimbun, CBS News (video and commentary),the New Zealand Herald, The New York Stringer, The New Indian Express, the BBC, and The Times of London, AND MORE.

    Books: Several Ig Nobel books have been translated into many languages.