The Ig Nobel Prizes and Improbable Research

Abstract

The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people LAUGH, then THINK. Ten new prizes have been awarded every year since 1991, in gala ceremonies at Harvard and MIT, with winners traveling from around the world, and Nobel laureates physically handing out the Ig Nobel Prizes. The whole history of science, technology and medicine is a parade of things that at first made people LAUGH, then THINK. The Igs focuses public curiosity on the early, thought-provoking, "Is it good, bad, or too-early-to-tell?" stage of things.