The 2009 Nobel Prizes
The XIX IgNobel Prize award ceremony was held at Harvard University on Thursday, October 1.
The award in the field of healthcare was awarded to Ukrainian Elena Bodnar, who lives in the USA, for the invention of a respirator bra. According to Bodnar, the idea of creating such a bra was inspired by the accident at the Chernobyl NPP: "Thus, the respirator will always be there." If necessary, two people will receive protection at once: the owner of a miracle bra can share a second cup with those in need.
The Peace Prize was awarded to Swiss pathologists who tried to figure out which beer bottle is better to get on the head – full or empty. It turned out that hitting an empty beer bottle is much more dangerous for a person than hitting a full one. This is because, in all seriousness, scientists write that carbon dioxide "bursts" the bottle and makes it more fragile.
In the field of mathematics, the Nobel Prize was awarded to the head of the National Bank of Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono. He issued banknotes in denominations from 1 cent to
Awards in the field of veterinary medicine were awarded to truly British scientists Catherine Douglas and Peter Rawlinson from the University of Newcastle. They found that cows with nicknames give more milk than nameless ones. (It's not hard to guess that cow nicknames are usually given by caring owners.)
The prize in the field of economics, extremely relevant in 2009, was awarded to the heads and auditors of four Icelandic banks: Kaupting bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir bank and the Central Bank of Iceland. They received it for "demonstrating how small banks can turn into huge banks very quickly and vice versa, as well as for demonstrating that similar things can happen to the entire national economy."
The literary prize was awarded to Irish police officers for issuing about 50 fines to a driver named Prawo Jazdy, in Polish - "driver's license".
The biology prize was awarded to 72-year-old Japanese scientist Fumiaki Taguchi from the University of the Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara and two of his Chinese colleagues. They experimented with bacteria from panda excrement and proved that these microbes decompose kitchen waste very quickly and reduce their mass by 90%. The rest turns into carbon dioxide and water.
The prize in the field of medicine was awarded to the American doctor Donald Unger. He conducted a bold experiment on himself: every day for 60 years, he cracked the knuckles of his left hand (but never his right) to check whether this leads to arthritis. "And after 60 years, I looked at my fingers and didn't find the slightest signs of arthritis," Unger, 83, told the Guardian newspaper. "Then I looked up at the sky and said, Mommy, how wrong you were!"
The prize in chemistry went to the Mexicans for obtaining wonderful diamonds from... tequila.
The physics prize was awarded to a group of American scientists who found out how pregnant women manage to keep their balance.
referenceThe name of the award is a play on words: in English it sounds like the Ig Nobel Prize (consonant with the English ignoble – "shameful") and is a parody of the English sound of the name of the Nobel Prize – Nobel Prize.
According to one version, the name also includes an allusion to the name Ig Nobel, which was worn by the inventor of soda with syrup.
In the adapted translation into Russian, the name sounds like the "Nobel Prize", but the variants "Ignobel Prize", "Gnobel Prize" and "anti-Nobel Prize" are also used.
The Nobel Prize was established in 1991 by the American journal "Annals of Improbable Research" with the participation of the co-founder and editor of the journal Marc Abrahams (Marc Abrahams). Since 1999, 10 Nobel Prizes have been awarded annually (in the period 1991-1998, their number ranged from 4 to 11): categories are added to the classic "Nobel" nominations (physics, chemistry, medicine/physiology, literature, economics and the struggle for peace), the topics of which are approved separately by the Nobel Committee each year. Over the years, the "non-permanent" nominations included: dietetics, archaeology, biology, cognitive science, linguistics, ornithology, acoustics, nutrition, hydro-gas dynamics, agriculture, healthcare, psychology, engineering, technology, hygiene, astrophysics, information technology, environmental protection, sociology, education, entomology, meteorology, art, consumer goods, and applied sciences).
According to the official wording, the Nobel Prize is awarded "for achievements that first cause laughter, and then – reflection" (the original wording of the 1991 sample read: "for achievements that cannot be reproduced or there is no point in doing it"). With the exception of the three prizes awarded in the first year of the ceremony, all awards imply that the laureates have real scientific papers and publications on the announced topic.
The award is sponsored by the Harvard Computer Society, the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Fiction Association and the Harvard-Radcliffe Physics Students Society.
The presentation takes place in early October on the eve of the Nobel Prize. Initially, the ceremony was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now the Nobel Prize is being awarded in the hall of the Sanders Theater (capacity – 1166 seats) at Harvard University, which gave the world the largest number of Nobel laureates. The laureates receive the award from the hands of real Nobel laureates, dressed up for the occasion in ridiculous costumes and equipped with fake glasses and false noses.
There is a tradition according to which, during the awarding ceremony, the audience launches paper airplanes onto the stage, which, after the end of the event, is collected by Professor Roy Glauber of Harvard University (Nobel laureate in physics), appointed the official "keeper of the broom" of the Schnobel Committee. In 2006, the launch of airplanes was banned "for security reasons."
The response speech of the Nobel Prize laureates should not last more than 60 seconds. Those who violate this limit are stopped by "Miss Sweetie Poo" – a little girl who comes on stage and whimsically exclaims: "Please stop, I'm bored!"
The shape of the Nobel prizes is different: they can be made in the form of a foil medal or clacking jaws on a stand. The certificate certifying its receipt is signed by three real Nobel Prize laureates.
The recording of the Nobel Prize award ceremony is broadcast on the first Friday after Thanksgiving on various channels of American television and radio in several languages. The live broadcast can be viewed on the official website of the award.
A few days after the ceremony, informal Nobel lectures are held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the laureates get the opportunity to explain the essence and significance of their research.
Russian scientists have twice received the Nobel Prize. In 1992, Yuri Struchkov, a Russian chemist and crystallographer, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, became its laureate in the field of literature. In the period from 1981 to 1990, he published 948 scientific papers, which amounted to about 4 papers per day. In 2002, the prize in economics went to the managers, managers and auditors of Gazprom for the application of the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers in the business world.
The award of the prize in some cases expresses veiled criticism, but in most cases the Nobel Committee draws attention to scientific papers whose title or topic contains funny or funny elements. For example, a study on calculating the total surface area of Indian elephants; a conclusion that black holes are suitable for the location of hell in their parameters; a work that investigated whether food that fell on the floor and lay there for less than five seconds would be infected.
The ceremony of awarding the Nobel Prize traditionally ends with the words of the presenter: "If you did not win this award – and especially if you did – we wish you good luck next year!".
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of the Runet
02.10.2009