2006 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
< http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2006 >
"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."
A selection of this year's winners:
+ PEACE
Howard Stapleton of Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, for inventing an electro-
mechanical teenager repellant -- a device that makes annoying noise
designed to be audible to teenagers but not to adults; and for later
using that same technology to make telephone ringtones that are audible
to teenagers but not to their teachers.
+ ACOUSTICS
D. Lynn Halpern, Randolph Blake and James Hillenbrand for conducting
experiments to learn why people dislike the sound of fingernails
scraping on a blackboard.
+ MATHEMATICS
Nic Svenson and Piers Barnes of CSIRO, for calculating the number of
photographs you must take to (almost) ensure that nobody in a group
photo will have their eyes closed.
+ LITERATURE
Daniel Oppenheimer for his report "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular
Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words
Needlessly."
+ ORNITHOLOGY
Ivan R. Schwab and the late Philip R.A. May, for exploring and
explaining why woodpeckers don't get headaches.
